A girl and her fish

During pick up time at preschool last week we were all set and ready to head to the gate and go home. I was loaded down with E’s back pack, some artwork and my treasurer stuff and E had a fish that had been hanging up from the ceiling for months. I was happy that the girls were cooperating for once and that I didn’t have to corral them to the gate, but on our way out I ended up chatting with another mother and the girls took full advantage of the situation and ran around the playground while we talked. After a few minutes I said goodbye and told the girls it was time to go. K was happy to oblige, but E decided that was the worst idea ever. What? Was I crazy? There was a playground to be played on - going home could wait. I called to her several times and attempted to chase her, but as I said I was loaded down and four year olds? They’re fast. And kind of small. At this point my patience was about as thin as rice paper and I was in no mood to convince a child - through gritted teeth - to come down off the monkey bars so we could go home. So, when E got closer to me I did the only thing I could think of and I grabbed her fish. My thinking was that, yes, she would be upset, but she would come chasing after me to get it back and I could lead her right to the car. At first my plan seemed to be working; she got upset and started to run, but instead of coming after me she went back up the steps towards the school. I thought it was a little odd, but just figured she was going to run along the patio and down the other set of steps near the gate. Well, E had another plan. She ran right up the steps, crying and yelling, and straight to her teacher.

She told on me.

I gave her back the fish feeling a bit silly and attempted a quick explanation of why I took it in the first place. Only everything I said just sounded like I was an idiot or mean. With me making jokes about ‘crazy kids’ on the way out we all walked to the car and I had to hear about how I took the fish and blah blah blah all the way home.

Moral of the story is that if you’re going to take something from your kid make sure there are no “responsible” adults in the surrounding proximity.

I still can’t believe she told on me. Jerk.

Oh, you thought I was exaggerating?

Zero to toddler in six seconds flat

At least it seems that way at times. Happy second birthday, K!

Mish Mash

~For the last two weeks I have forgotten to take the garbage bins to the curb the night before garbage day. Both times have resulted in me waking to the sound of the garbage truck coming down my street, then jumping! out of bed, running down the hall and out the door and pushing the bins (with my eyes half shut and my hair scruffed out - just ask my neighbour) to the curb. Lucky for me the garbage collectors do the other side first or I’d be SOL.

~A couple weeks ago I bought E some new winter clothes. In the store I debated on whether to get her the size four or five pants. The fives were a bit big in the waist and length so I went with the fours which were pretty good all around and still had a little extra length in case she had a spurt over the next few months. I think you can guess where this is going - the pants are now suitable for flood waters. These kids and their growing.

~I know I’m getting old because Big Brother has just started up for the year here and as I was trying to watch last night my head was about to explode listening to one of the 20 year olds speak. Like, I just couldn’t, like, listen anymore? Like when someone who like doesn’t actually know anything about, like, the topic of the, like discussion, but like still, like puts their like idiotic like two cents in? Like, that really like puts me over the like edge. Like, like, like. LIKE! I’ve watched the series every year (except the first because I wasn’t living in this country, but I watched the American one that year) and the irritating, mind numbing, substance lacking conversation might actually stop me from tuning in this year. Maybe.

~I get several people visiting this post everyday via a Google search for puffy knee (Number three currently. Woohoo?), swollen knee or something to that effect. It is my most popular post on the entire blog. The post has absolutely no information for people wondering about knee problems and I feel kind of bad. One day when I’m not feeling lazy I may actually put some helpful links on there.

~Have you ever seen the show ‘Shaun the Sheep‘? It’s a kids show, but it is so well done and hilarious. I found a couple episodes on You Tube to get you started (One is about six minutes and the other seven and both are worth the watch.):

It’s my party and i’ll scream as loud as I can if I want to

So, it is K’s second birthday on Monday and I’m not giving her a birthday party. Now before you start thinking I’m an awful person please let me explain. See, the thing is we just don’t like her that much. Ha! Ha. Ha. I am completely and utterly joking please don’t send me nasty emails. No, the reason is more because K does not like anyone all that much. Especially people who are over four feet tall. She likes me, Andy and E just fine, but pretty much anyone else, even grandparents, she’s needs a good three hours to warm up to. And after those three hours it’s still a crapshoot with her level of tolerance towards you/them; sometimes she’s willing to give kisses, sometimes you’re lucky to get a smile pointed in your direction. All this plus her absolute hatred of the Happy Birthday song* makes me feel as though a party might be more similar to torture to her than a fun celebration. So, instead we’ll have cake and a meal she likes with the handful of people she can stand to be around on her big day.

*She really hates this song. Last week when Andy and E were trying to sing it to me she would not let it happen and this morning when we sang it to Andy** it was mixed with a chorus of angry toddler screams.

**Yes, this is a busy few weeks for us with birthdays - my mother’s is on the 10th as well.

It’s suddenly brighter in here

So it seems that turning 29 flicked a switch in me or something. You know this little passage from my birthday post:

15-16: We move from Upper Sackville to Lower Sackville. I start high school and have to take the bus with a bunch of kids I don’t know. The year only goes downhill from here. My friends all disown me, but I never find out why (I assume it had something t do with the Disney bitch.). I spend a lot of the year crying. I eat lunch in the bathroom stalls. I skip classes. I go home due to headaches a lot. I start to shake when the school bus pulls into school each morning. My grades are not good.

The year starts to take a positive turn in last couple months of school. I realize just how badly I was treated and that people actually noticed when the boyfriend of a new (well, we were friends a couple years earlier, but grew apart) friend tells me, “You don’t have to walk behind us, come up here beside us.” That still makes me cry.

Yes, that little spirit lifter. Well, do you know how many people I have ever told about that experience in my life? Zero. Besides very briefly summarizing that year to Andy a couple years ago I have never talked about it to anyone. The reason is because up until a few months ago it still made me cry. A lot. Have you ever heard the song “Better Days” by Pete Murray? If not you should click the link and have a listen. Anyway, that song could have been written for me about that time (minus the praying, but still) and I could not hear it without being completely reduced to tears and thinking back to that awful point in my life. Now, though? Well, I’m listening to it right this minute and no tears! And I can actually talk about it, not just write. After reading that post my mother, of course, wondered what the hell happened and I told her all about it and later that day I also told Andy a more detailed version. I’m kind of glad that I was able to get it out there, too. I mean, I know it was a long time ago, but it had a huge impact on me, who I was and who I am now. And look! Now I can’t shut up about the whole thing!

I also ended up confessing (if you will) some of my underage drinking stories to my mother. Which, isn’t such a big thing for me, but I was just never able to come out and admit that I did actually drink during high school. To be completely honest, I thought I had her completely in the dark about it all, but as you know from her comments on the last post I did not. I still managed to give her a little shock, though and when all was said and done she decided she needed a drink to sit back and get her head around it all. Ha!

So, yeah. Who knew 29 would unlock all this stuff for me. It’s refreshing!

I want my blog to be more personal like the last post, but I find it really hard to do. I think the key for me letting all of you really get to know me is by telling stories from my past that shaped me. It’s not like I’ll go down memory lane all the time now, but I don’t think I can put the current life struggles out there. I can only share the things that have a beginning, middle and end that I feel like I can tell you about. Obviously I’m talking about the topics that lean to the more negative side of life - it’s easy to share the happy going ons, isn’t it?

Some people are probably wondering why it even matters to me to share the darker things in life (hello, non bloggers!) and I can’t say exactly. Something in me wants the people who read each post to really know me - other than that I don’t have any explanation.

Looking back on 29 years

Ok, I intended to write this post as a funny, haha, I can’t remember anything about my life time line. While it still remains that I can barely remember anything under the age of say, 11 it seems I have a bit more to say about the rest of my years…

0-1: Um, I was born. Had needles in my head because I had a mystery virus that the doctors were never able to diagnose. (I don’t actually remember this, of course)

1-2: I was a baby. Learned to walk at some point? I’ve got nothing.

2-3: My brother was born. When it was time for my father and I to leave after our visit at the hospital I was not happy and made it known by screaming the entire way through the hospital, down the stairs and to the car. Of this I actually have a very vague two second memory.

3-4: Grew a bit.

4-5: Learned to tie my shoes…I think. I believe this was the age when my father’s mother died.

5-6: Started school. My primary teacher, Ms. Cox, favoured girls and let us get away with anything. (Not that five year olds do anything too bad). Me and another girl in class draw funny faces instead of paying attention, Ms. Cox notices and simply tells us to stop drawing without getting mad. When some boys act up later they get yelled at, I took notice of this straight away and knew the year would be pretty easy.

6-7: Still growing. While it’s not a memory it’s interesting to think that at this point in life I was not the shortest person in the room. This lasted for quite a few more years.

7-8: Grade two. A bit of a goody goody.

8-9: Grade three. This is the first year my best friend, Amy (who lived next door to me since we were new borns), and I are in the same class.

9-11: I have a few memories here, but they’re jumbled so I’m not sure exactly which years they all took place.

Grade four. We have a teacher, Mrs. Nauss, who did a very weird nose grab whenever she was frustrated. We all found this amusing and I think this is the first teacher my fellow classmates and I almost broke - down the road we will break two. This was the point when the goody goodyness stopped.

Somewhere in these two years my parents went to Spain for a week. We stayed with my (maternal) grandparents and were allowed to miss school for the whole week. My mother kissed a piece of paper and left a lipstick print on it for me (us?) to kiss goodnight and I did every night. I cried every time they called, which I’m sure made their trip. The day they got back we were eating kraft dinner with ham chopped up and mixed in. This was the first time I had KD like this and I loved it.

My mother’s mother died in this time, I think when I was 11. This was my first funeral and I was concerned because I wasn’t crying and I thought people would think I didn’t love my grandmother. I noticed my mother crying and that made me sad and I managed a few tears, but didn’t understand why I wasn’t crying more.

I got a perm. My hair was so thick that they had to use two bottles of perm solution. My hair looked awful; like a huge puffy triangle. As soon as I got home I tried to brush it out. When my brother and Amy saw me they laughed - rightfully so.

11-12: Grade six. This was an odd time when it was “cool” to volunteer to “do the garbage” at lunch time. The janitor favoured the boys and whenever it was them who did the garbage he would give them candy, us girls got nothing.

Me and all my friends tried out for the soccer and volleyball teams. Every. Single. One. of them made it, but not me. I was the only one. This fact put me off from ever trying out for a school sport team again. And even though I was not good (I was always a little afraid of the balls) I wasn’t bad. Had I made one of the teams I’m sure I’d have been fine and gotten better, built confidence and what have you. Even though I know kids need to learn lessons and that not everyone can make the team I still think that decision sucked. It was freaking elementary sports teams for crying out loud. Plus it meant I had no one to play with in the mornings when they were all practicing since, you know, EVERYONE ELSE made it. (I really wasn’t that bad, I swear!)

A girl in our class goes to Disneyland and brings back a pencil for everyone in the class but me. She did it on purpose and made sure I knew it was not an accident. This is a trend that will follow us right through our school careers. (To be honest, I still pretty much hate her even though we’ve been out of school for more than ten years.)

We have a class trip to Cape Breton. The parent who is the leader for my group sucks and makes us late all the time and miss out on a bunch of stuff. The thing I was most upset about missing is a secret game of spin the bottle in one of the other kids’ rooms.

The last day of grade six there are massive fires in Quebec (quite a distance away) and the skies are the craziest colour I have ever seen. The clouds and odd colours make it look like a tv set outside. Me, Mamma and Joseph go out for the traditional end of school year Dairy Queen Blizzard.

12-13: My uncle visits from Vancouver and brings my brother and I each a t-shirt (which I still have, 17 years later). During his visit the iron falls on my hand and burns a sunglasses shaped scar on my hand - this makes my too scared to iron for a few years.

I start junior high. The first day I wear a yellow wool sweater and beige pants. It’s still hot, but I wanted to wear my new school clothes. I soon realize that my wardrobe is very kiddish compared to the rest of the kids, but it doesn’t concern me too much just yet.

13-14: Grade eight. To this point in my life this is my best year. I suddenly became obsessed with the phone and boys and phone calls to boys. I got my own phone for my 14th birthday and spent many hours talking to whatever boy I had a crush on at the time. I also get a bit nasty to another girl who has a crush on the same boy as me and call his house pretending to be her one night. Unfortunately this was also the time caller id started up. He knew it was me the whole time and never said a word - this fact still turns my cheeks a little red.

I saw so many movies at the theatre this year. We went practically every weekend. I’m sure we were what kept the place in money.

14-15: Grade nine. Me, Amy, two other girl friends and two boys all decide to buy a bottle of rum, well we decide to pay an older kid to get it for us. They come back with whiskey, but we take it to the woods and drink. Amy and I have about two sips each, the boys and one girl each have a bit and the other girl had about half the bottle to herself. She ends up not being able to walk straight and we can’t keep her quiet. We decide that crashing another boy from school’s birthday party would be a great idea. His parents are home, see the state of the other girl and call the police. We take off and spend the rest of the night literally running from the cops. Amy and I split off from the group and Amy twists her ankle when we jump in a ditch when a police car goes by. When it’s time for my mother to pick us up we go sit outside the drunk girl’s house and wait at the curb because there is a police car in her driveway as she had been caught (and taken to the hospital to have her stomach pumped). Her dad is a fireman so we just say it’s a friend of his. We don’t get caught and I swear I will never drink again. The next part was straight out of a movie because I get the courage up to have lunch at the house of one of the girls who’d been caught and her step mother tells me she is not happy about the weekend’s events and, “I’m sure [drunk girl's] mother called your mother and told her what happened.” To which I said, “Yes, and I got in trouble.” And that worked. I could not believe my luck. The next weekend I get home from being out with friends and go to bed. My mother comes in the room and asks if we had been drinking. We hadn’t, but I start to freak out thinking she’ll call one of the other girl’s mothers and they’ll tell her about the previous weekend. She believed me, didn’t call and this right here will be the first she’s ever heard this story. ::ahem::

15-16: We move from Upper Sackville to Lower Sackville. I start high school and have to take the bus with a bunch of kids I don’t know. The year only goes downhill from here. My friends all disown me, but I never find out why (I assume it had something t do with the Disney bitch.). I spend a lot of the year crying. I eat lunch in the bathroom stalls. I skip classes. I go home due to headaches a lot. I start to shake when the school bus pulls into school each morning. My grades are not good.

The year starts to take a positive turn in last couple months of school. I realize just how badly I was treated and that people actually noticed when the boyfriend of a new (well, we were friends a couple years earlier, but grew apart) friend tells me, “You don’t have to walk behind us, come up here beside us.” That still makes me cry.

16-17: A good year. I have good friends. My grades go up. I get my license at 17 and I’m allowed to take the car out that night.

It becomes painfully obvious to me and my physics teacher that I haven’t got a clue what I’m doing when my lab partner is sick one day and I almost blow the lab up when connecting a circuit thingamajig.

I spend halloween night coughing uncontrollably. Turns out I have pneumonia.

17-18: Last year of high school. I entered this year saying I was going to have fun, flirt (I was a bit extremely shy) and leave school smiling. I manage to do all these things and have the highest grades of my high school career. There was tons of partying and socializing and I had a blast. (Oh, and I had given up on the “never drinking again” thing back at the end of grade ten.)

18-19: I start university. I get my first job in a deli at the grocery where I make a friend who is 23. She invites me to a party at her house which is fun, but later in the night everyone decided to head out to the bars. I was only 18 and the drinking age is 19, but I went along anyway. I have an older girls id just incase, but I don’t even get asked for it at the door. I was so excited to be in a bar, but too nervous to order a drink incase they realized I shouldn’t be there.

My grandfather sends me, my brother and my cousins to Norway for a family reunion. On this trip I spent more than $700 on alcohol. (It was something like $10 for one on tap beer.) The trip was fantastic, but unfortunately I was so homesick that I didn’t fully appreciate it at the time.

I lose my job at the deli for taking five weeks off to go to Norway. I hated the job and, money aside, was not sorry about not having to go back.

19-20: Did not go back to university - it didn’t suit me. Decide to work for a year and get a job at Arby’s. It sounds like it would be a crap job, but up until the last few months it was a really fun place to work.

20-21: Decide to give photography a go, but I can’t just go into a photo program so I apply for Applied Communication Arts Program (ACAP) at the community college. I love it. It never feels like school because it is all so fun.

Leave Arby’s and get a job at a photography retail store, Black’s Photography. I feel good finally having a job where I don’t have to wear a hat.

I move out with a friend. It only lasts a short five weeks, but I had a really great time. Unfortunately my friend got a little too homesick and needed to go back home (to Cape Breton) and I couldn’t afford it on my own.

21-24: Is pretty well summed up here, but here are a few random things from this time.

Andy and I go out for a friends birthday while we’re iving in Port Douglas. This is a very touristy area and most places have a locals discount. At the bar I (the Canadian) am given the discount and Andy (the Australian who’d been living there for a few years) is not. I find this endlessly hilarious.

I go scuba diving on The Great Barrier Reef. Turns out I DO NOT like scuba diving, but I’m glad I got the chance. Later while everyone is viewing the video of us all diving that is for sale everyone laughs at me when I come on camera - including me.

We have a slight fender bender on a very dangerous road from Port Douglas to Cairns. It was TOTALLY the rich tourists fault, but we end up paying for it for the next two years.

24-25: Learning to be a mother takes up most of my time. My mother visits when E is born. I finally make some friends in Victoria through a mother’s group.

25-26: Andy, E and I go on a trip to Nova Scotia. This is the first time everyone in my family besides my mother gets to meet either of them.

We move to our second address in Victoria.

26-27: I’m drawing a blank here…

27-28: K is born. Joseph comes for a visit.

28-29: We go to South Australia for a mini vacation. I go back and forth on whether or not to have a third baby.(Still no at this stage.) I volunteer to be the treasurer at E’s preschool. Potential to move to Canada comes up. A few grey hairs also come up.

29: So far I’m one day in and everything seems good. I’ll keep you updated.

If you made it through this congratulations! You may have 100 bonus points to do with what you please.

Signs I may have become too antisocial

While in the preschool office during pick-up time the other day the mother of a girl in E’s class hands me an envelope and says it’s for her daughter’s birthday party. These were the thoughts that ran through my head:

~ Is this what you have to do when your kid is in preschool? Invite the whole damn class to the party? There are 25 kids here!

~ Crap. Does this mean I have to invite all of them to E’s next party?*

~ Does E even know this kid? I don’t have a clue which one she is. I’m going to find out before I tell her about the invite because if she doesn’t? We are definitely not going. (She does.)

~ Even if she does I don’t want to go. Wait, do I have to go? Do kids go to parties by themselves at this age?

~ It only says “craft party” not birthday party so do I have to buy a present. F@#k, of course we’ll buy a stupid present for “random girl”.

~ I still have a few weeks to make up an excuse. I mean maybe she’s just inviting everyone so they don’t feel left out - I’d really be doing her a favour by not going.

I ended up telling E about the invite and she completely flipped and carried the invitation around all night. It’s on a Saturday so I guess I’ll take her, but what is the deal with all the socializing? We have a preschool “get together” tomorrow night at a local park. It’s not a fundraiser or anything, it’s “just for fun!”. E is freaking lucky I want her to be a happy, well rounded child because the only reason I’m willing to do this stuff is for her.

*Seriously, though. Am I expected to invite her entire class to her birthday party? Does anyone else think that is nuts? There are two kids who she talks about all the time who I would have invited, but if inviting those two means the rest have to come I think E’s school friends will be missing out on the celebration.

Who’s that knocking at your window?

E has developed a kind of habit of sleeping in my bed every second or third night. She’s not terrible to sleep with and if it’s just me and her (Andy on couch thanks to snoring) there is enough room, but I still don’t want it to become a regular thing. She always manages to take up two thirds of the bed even though she is much smaller than me and when there is three of us in there it’s just too crowded. What can I say? I like my space when I sleep.

I find it hard to turn her away for a couple of reasons: One, she usually comes in at a very late hour and I’m in no mood to argue with a whiny kid at that point (aka: it’s just easier to say ok). Two, I still have scary dreams and manage to scare the crap out of myself thinking there are vampires at my window and I’m (nearly) 29 years old so how can I blame a four year old for thinking there’s a monster outside her window? I mean seriously, what if there is?* What kind of a mother would I be to leave her with a monster?

I have found that if I have a talk with her at bedtime and ask her to sleep the whole night in her own bed that she actually stays there. Sometimes I forget to do this, though, and it’s almost always the case that on those nights I’ll find her right at my face, waking me up at three a.m.

Thursday night I was feeling pretty sick. I knew I was in for an awful sleep because my throat was swollen and my body temperature couldn’t decide if it wanted to be freezing or boiling and changed every 15 seconds. I asked Andy to sleep on the couch so that I wouldn’t keep him up and so I could have to whole bed to feel miserable in and he agreed. E was having a bad night already and when I went to bed at ten she was still awake. She came in my room about five minutes after I was in bed and asked to sleep with me. This time I said no, and explained to her that I was sick and just needed some space. She begged and pleaded for a minute but I kept telling her no and that’s when she hit me with this little gem complete with sobs and genuine tears rolling down her little cheeks:

“But I just wanted to lay with a friend.”

*heart breaks*

And, of course I said ok. How could I not? Mind you when she tried that line on me again the following night after hearing me relay the story to a couple people and telling them how cute it was? Yeah, then it wasn’t quite so hard to say no. You do have to give the girl credit for trying, though.

*I’m only joking. Well, like 75 % joking. Ok, ok - half. Yes, I’m half joking about monsters at (nearly) 29 years of age. Look, I never said I was rational.

Here’s hoping this is just a cute quirk

As you can probably see I have changed my theme here at it’s all a blur. I decided I wanted two columns in my sidebar and went from there. I’m really happy with the new look with only one exception: the width of the columns are all fixed. What this means in this case is that the center column is not wide enough for the usual size of photos I use and they will either be cut off a little or I will have to use a smaller size photo. I looked through eight bazillion themes and the only one I like was this so I just decided to live with that small inconvenience.

I did notice one funny little thing when checking out my new surrounds, though. See if you can spot it:

Not sure? Maybe this will help:

A little closer?

And just to be sure you see it:

I saw the same little smiley on my old theme, but it was beside the name of the person who designed that theme and I assumed it was part of their signature. Now I’m wondering if this is a wordpress thing, so if you have a wordpress blog do you see this little smiley anywhere on the page? I’m kind of hoping you do because as nice as it would be to be “special” I think we would have to start looking in the direction of a virus and we Andy literally just formatted and reinstalled everything because of the last virus we I managed to get. Fingers crossed!

Updated to add: Ok, I just realized that I could just go and look at other wordpress pages myself. Yes I’m a quick one. And I see the smiley on UCM, Sharkey and Cat’s. Now I guess the question is can you all see it, too?

Updated, again, to add: I did a little research and have found that the smiley is placed there by wordpress for their stat counter. I kind of wish I just left it alone now because the answer has turned out to be a bit boring. Ah well, he’s still cute…I guess.