Missed moments in time

I frequently fret over lost time.  I am very unlike other women where I take time for myself and read a good book daily (not an entire book daily – on occasionally – but actually sit down to read on a daily basis), so I don’t mean those kind of moments that you can never get back.  I mean the little ones in your kids’ or family’s life that are forever treasured, that you’d sell your soul to have a camcorder ready (did I just use the term camcorder? shit I’m old).

I’ve mentioned before that my memory of time is crappy … at least I think it is … what was I saying?  Anyway, that crappy memory always comes back to haunt me when I’m in the midst of family who is joyfully renditioning some silly thing I did or some event in our lives that I cannot for-the-life-of-me remember.

I don’t get remorseful or truly upset about those times.  But I am sorely going to miss those little moments in my kids’ lives that I can’t get back.  Sweet Pea has been extra cuddly lately and after a good cuddle with me he scootched down to the floor, layed on his belly and his knees with his bum in the air and his sweet little face pressed sideways into the floor.  It was the cutest thing, and of course at moments like those, an amateur like me doesn’t have a camera handy so I have to rely on my memory for those moments.  But my memory is highly unreliable.

Crapola memory aside, it sure would be nice to be able to somehow capture those moments that are seemingly unforgettable.  You know, those times when your 18 m/o puts a bra ovre his head, or when he drinks out of the toilet, or when your 8 y/o barters with her cheapo father about the payment due for shovelling heavy snow, or when you find your 10 y/o lost in a book in the most uncomfortable position you can think of.  Those moments are the moments that are lost forever, but a camera behind your forehead would be so handy.

I feel like there is so much I’ve missed of their lives, even though I was standing right there, I can’t just rewind the tape to review it, it’s gone, the moment has passed by.  This is when you truly realize that they grow up so fast, it just flashes by your eyes and in a moment, your infant son is 18 months old and signing for milk at you.

Missing those moments won’t keep me from watching them occur, but it would be so nice to be able to recall them.

Holy sinus pain batman

My first cold in 2 years is turning out to be a doozy.  Sinus pain, snotty nose complete with soreness from blowing so often, headache, watery eyes (almost sounds like allergy, but it’s not, it’s most likely from the sinus issue).  I have no doubts that the headache could be from a bit of dehydration from all the freakin’ fluids leaking out of my face.

Isn’t it fun reading other people’s blogs, you get all the nitty-gritty information you never thought you’d have about a complete stranger.

I’m going to spend most of the day in bed.  Why?  Because I want to.

Goodnight sweetheart.

Missing you

I have a special relationship with my mom, and yes I count myself very lucky.  It’s not always been like this of course as I had that moment in teenage-hood where I became frankenfish with a serious lobotomy, but lucky enough for the both of us it only lasted a couple of years.  I’m sure she thought something had possessed her previously great daughter and I just thought she was trying to ruin my life (say that with the greatest of whiny drama and you’ve got the gist of it).

At about 15 or so I stumbled upon God.  No, I don’t mean that I literally tripped over him as if he were a bug on the sidewalk, but I found him, as if I had really been searching for him all along in those lefty cigarettes, sleazy guys and booze bottles.  I can’t say for sure if that’s what threw me into life more than what I was before as I still did those things occasionally, but it’s almost like I became human again.

I didn’t just turn into an angel, but the relationship with my mom started to develop from that point.  It’s almost like I took that commandment I learned to heart, ‘Honor thy Father and Mother’.   I didn’t just accept Catholicism, I took it on.  Maybe I even caught a glimpse of what I truly had beside me, a glimpse that wasn’t so filtered with teenage eyes clouded with hormones.  I had and have a great mom.

It’s not even Mother’s day and I’m touting her goodness.

I have a very poor memory of my childhood, I truly do, but I do remember the feelings and overall mood that was apparant in the house.  It was still a little bit crazy as I also had an older brother half-living in the house (half living with his girlfriend), but the overall mood was lighter, fluffier even.

When I got married, our lives were immediately separated, cleaved if you will because I moved to another city to go to college (3 hours from where they lived).  I think it was around that point that our relationship really grew.  I had very little friends around me to turn to, none close, with the exception of my one friend (who lived closer to my parents than I did) and my mom.  I often chose my mom, I think because I enjoyed the relationship blossoming, almost like a new love.

There came point in my life where I just needed my mommy again: when my PPD got out of hand I’d travel with 2 babies alone just to see her, when my il’s were driving me crazy, I’d travel with 2 babies alone (again) to visit a family I never felt I had to perform for.  My dh worked on the rigs, I relied, probably a little heavy, on my mom to pull me through the absolute lonliness of being an oil wife.  Ewww, not that kind of oil wife.

Now, she is an enormous part of my life.  It’s her fault really for being so wonderful to me everytime I enter her presence, but I do cherish it.  They bought a place in Mexico and travel there a bit and it wasn’t until this last long trip (a month) that I truly realized the extent of my dependency on her.  Not for anything financial, but she really added to my emotional stability, my psyche if you will.  Skype kept us able to see each other and talk occasionally, but it’s a different thing when I can reach out and ruffle her soft gray hair, or when I can pass a cute little man onto her lap and watch him chew on her Buddha necklace again, or just being there.

She’s my best friend, I miss her when she’s gone, and I can’t wait to see her again today.

Where is home?

Where is home to you?  Does it matter really so much?  I would think that a safe existence with a solid house would be all one could ask for.

There’s a story in our town about a family from a foreign country in dire straights as they are about to be deported to their home country.  The story goes that they fled the country because of a threat on their existence from a political side of the coin and it isn’t likely that they could’ve just moved a couple of cities away in order to stay safe, so they came here.  They came here eight years ago and claimed refugee status immediately.  The way our system seems to work though is you have to prove it.  The country itself wasn’t the problem as it isn’t in true turmoil (like say Afghanistan, etc), but something of a more personal nature.  They were denied that first claim for lack of proof, so they applied another way.

I’m having a lot of trouble with this story and there is only one reason why.  The media.  I loathe media-venues for retrieving knowledge as the knowledge is often tainted and skewed so as to read a certain way.  But isn’t that the same thing about everything you read?  It’s a personalized opinion made to seem like fact and it turns my stomach thinking that the truth is something I have to unearth from the supposed facts presented.

Supposedly, this family’s lawyer was murdered shortly after they left, but yet a supposed search by immigration found no such lawyer to exist.  Supposedly they were in great danger when living there, but supposedly their son returned shortly after and is living there in peace.

I hate the thought of ’supposeds’ as it puts doubt in my minds as to the validity of the story and I will never know if the tax dollars I pay will be used to forcefully remove this man, or to decide to let him stay here.  Just an FYI he has a job and his employer loves him to pieces.

Then there’s the question of ‘what the hell is wrong with that’?

I’ve heard many arguments about ‘letting’ too many immigrants in because it puts a huge strain on our resources while these people sit on social assistance having babies.  Give me a break, that is only a ‘truth’ set out there by a racist person hell-bent on spreading hatred.  Next they’ll be spouting off about how these immigrants want the anthem translated officially into their own language, something that is completely untrue (check snopes people please before sending me that bloody email again!). Or here’s another big one; that they will take the jobs from the ones here.  Uh no, if you aren’t willing to work (and actually work, not sit on your ass with a cushy union job) for a certain amount of money, and someone else is, that’s the way it works.  They aren’t taking your job, they are accepting a position you were too good to take and turned down.  And if they are taking your job it’s because they do it BETTER than you!

*ahem* sorry.  Moving on.

These people are coming here because they want a better life, simple as that.  They aren’t here to turn out country into their old one, that again is just a hatred based assumption because they want to keep their culture (although turbans in the RCMP and religious swords in school are the exception to that idea, but that’s another blog post in itself).

Why close the doors to immigration?  What would truly happen?  Would we truly turn out like our Southern compadres with racism flourishing toward ‘lesser’ fortunate?

I haven’t come to any conclusion on this family for myself.  I know it’s because he has a job that I don’t think any less of him, he is helping society as much as he is drawing from it.  I am just so torn on my opinions because I don’t know the absolute truths about the story, will never garner it from the media, and cannot truly know what would happen if we ‘allowed’ immigrants to enter easier.  I just don’t know and I hate that I don’t know.

I do hope this family the best in whatever comes their way.  Their situation has been extended short term until it can be reviewed again, most likely because the media got a hold of it.

Way to Go U of Winnipeg!

In the days of being environmentally friendly, it’s often the little guys that face the problems hindering environment come-back by morphing into recycling gurus.  They scour every bit and piece that comes into their home for the recyclability and change their day to day functioning to reduce their footprint on their world around them.

So when I hear of great big brutes like the University of Winnipeg banning the sale of plastic water bottles on campus, I cheer loudly for their boldness.

A few years back dh and I would start out our summer camping festivities with the big shopping trip, and it always, always included a case of water bottles.  Our intentions were to increase the consumption of water by our kids, but instead we were lining distant shores with our litter (okay, we were recycling, but it sounds more drastic saying we were contributing to a real oceanic problem).

We realized shortly that our purchases of so many bottles was contributing to a world problem with our reliance on the plastics that can be so detrimental to our Earth.  When we got to that point we bought a reusable 20L jug and a pump dispenser that fits on top and keep a cup nearby (yes, we share).  Easy-peasy, and the kids still drank water as much as they had been when we used the little bottles.

Every time I go to the grocery store I cringe seeing the amount of water bottles that go out the door, especially in a town with really tasty water.  Why do we resort to water bottle drinking when the tap is just as good if not better?

I say bravo to you University of Winnipeg, bravo for taking that stance, let us hope that your brazen step leads a much bigger pack in the wake behind you.

Tuesday’s tete-a-tete

 

I’ve been avoiding posting on purpose.  No, there’s nothing really wrong in my life, so that’s not the reason.  I have come to the conclusion that my focus was turning from this blog being a place for me to vomit and spew my thoughts onto a page and becoming routine, something to just do because a day had gone by.  I had even started to get a small thrill from comments.  Yes, I know comments are the currency of blogging, but I had missed the part for a while there that I just don’t care.  I was even looking at advertising income.  WTF.

When I started this blog, I had no true idea what I wanted to use it for.  In fact it was a very slow thing and I only posted a few times a month.  What a waste of bytes lemme tell ya.  I started to take some focus when we were first adopting, but then we received an infant and my time was taken for a while.  But I got my focus back.  Here’s the thing.  I’ve worked very little on this blog and very much kept the intent of it being my own place, my sanctuary, a place to call my own unlike my own home where even going to the bathroom is often not alone.  I didn’t ever want this to become a popular place really.  I’m sure deep down there was a little bit that was thrilled at the concept of people around the world reading my drivel, but I seriously never wanted this to become something of a job, or something that was expected of me.  In the last little while, this has felt very close to being that.  I’ve taken a breather in the last few days on purpose and it has felt quite good.

That and I’m into a new book series until my Twilight one gets here (shipped out from Am@zon on Sunday).  I can’t say it’s been new to me as I’ve been reading them for over a month.  It’s the Harry Bosch series by Michael Connelly.  It’s a good series if you like cop drama/adventures/mysteries like I do.  I am still searching for more on the forensic/ME side (I’ve already devoured the Scarpetta series), but this was a good distraction in the mean time.   Harry Bosch is a loner, pain in the ass detective who seems to take a small thrill in pissing as many people off as possible.  I really like his character.  It’s not just another perfect character who gets the bad guy because of his perfection, he’s got some depth, craziness, serious attitude and a screw-the-world philosophy.  He doesn’t follow the rules to a tee but is hell-bent on making sure the homicide cases that come in front of his face get his full attention.

So yes, the book whore still reads other books even when the ones she really wants to read aren’t delivered yet.

I’ve become something I never thought I’d be.  When my daughters were in regular school, occasionally they’d get held in from recess as a punishment for not doing something.  I hated that as a punishment, I really did.  I always felt that holding back something as physically beneficial as running around outside was detrimental to the learning process.  But now I get it.  I finally get it.  That is the only true currency kids have during school.  I don’t have to coax the girls to work, they work quite well, but occasionally, the moon is at a certain point or something and they just go hog wild.  They behave like animals and create havoc in the learning day.  Today was the first day that I actually threatened withholding their swimming from them in order to get them focused.  I regretted the words as soon as they came out of my mouth, and definitely found myself feeling sheepish at being so miffed at the teachers use of the same punishment.

We’ll go swimming today, whether they work well or not.  I won’t tell them that, I’ll let that slip onto the list of things not to do for homeschooling.

My Dreams

You know you’re a little too into blogging when you start dreaming of your bloggy friends.  Of course I’m okay with it, but would Sean and Louise be okay with it?

Sean and Louise are a couple of full-time RV’ers on one of the coolest RVs I have yet to see.  It is no mere motorhome, but a custom made Neoplan bus converted into a beautiful RV that seems to meet there every need from easy cat litter removal to an inflatable hot tub.  Trust me, it is super amazing.  I’ve followed their travels for a while in their “Odyssey” as they’ve dubbed it on their blog “Our Odyssey”, the link is on my side panel.

Explanation aside, this couple was in my dream last night.  They’ve often actually had visits with their readers as they travel the countryside and if they are parked for a while, they even schedule tours of the bus.  So it seems pretty obvious that they show up to the house I grew up in, in my dream of of course.  They pulled up and at that point I remember myself being in the vehicle with them and watching Sean pull up and turn off the bus before he’s stopped (which is technically not right considering it’s most likely air brakes, but it’s my dream, I’m going with it).  Then of course, it seemed perfectly natural that I was also outside waiting for them with my parents, whose motorhome was parked in front of Odyssey.  We were all intrigued and I have to tell you the tour presented in my brain is nothing like their bus.  Sure it went to a second level like theirs does, but the stairs were different and the front room had giant cupboards at the rear end of it (say where their kitchen actually starts).  Oh and the pets, they had a whack of dogs and cats (no fish unfortunately), but they were nothing like their real pets.  The one cat was a fuzzy orange ball that sat in a bowl and put his ears back when I went to pet it (I’m allergic, he must’ve known).  And the dogs were chihuahua and another teeny breed I don’t know (I believe they only have 1 dog IRL).

Anyway, the gist of the dream was that they travelled all the way up to my hometown to see me (of course, why else would they be in the middle of nowhere in Canada) and give my parents a tour of their place, a good reason as any to travel here, no? ~rolls eyes~

Besides the awesome dream, I slept like crapola last night.  (Ma, if you read this, you might want to move on to something else)  Mainly because I keep waking up trying to figure out if I really want to go visit my Grampa today.  I loathe the nursing home scene.  I force myself on an almost weekly basis to step inside those doors.  The whole scene is gruesome to me and makes me cringe just thinking about it.

Side note – I am seriously playing fetch with Rover as I type this, and this would be so normal if Rover were a dog and not an 18 month old boy.  My dog-child. end of side note.

My mom has put coffee on every Saturday since she moved to the area about 10 years ago.  This weekly coffee thing has always been held at my mom’s house, but when Grampa became less and less mobile (wheelchair bound) it became too hard to get him in the door, but we still tried.  There was a point when his dementia was far enough gone that it became hard on him to travel, that and he was in a home by then, so coffee became no more.  That was that, it was pretty much done.  The only way we’d have coffee anymore was if we all traipsed to the home.

I hate the home, I really do.  Not that anyone is seriously pleased when their loved one heads to a home, but I just hate it.  I avoid it a lot in fact.  I love to sing, I even have my own karaoke machine.  At the home is a Friday sing-a-long and I don’t go, because I hate the home.

Truth be told I’m not even familiar with the man we put in there.  He’s still my Grampa, but he’s lost everything that made him my Grampa, but a few memories of us.  Hell, since he’s blind he doesn’t ‘recognize’ us anymore.  My Gramma went to Mexico with my mom for a while and he barely registered that she was gone.

*sigh* We’ll probably go this morning anyway.  It has very little to do with Grampa anymore anyway, more to do with Grams.

What a post today; dreams, Rovers and nursing home woes.  It’s a good thing it’s my blog ’cause then I can do what I want!

Extent of the lethargy

I never used to think of myself as calm, rational, serene, etc., nor any other form of the word that comes to mind has ever been used to describe my core.  But lately I’ve been seeing more and more of my calmness, my lethargy if you will, sprouting through a fairly controlled exterior.

That’s not to say that excitement, vigilance, or impatience never seeps through, as that would be a bold faced lie, but I haven’t been getting as hyper vigilant as I had in the past about things going on in my life.

Take the seizure business.  I’m concerned, but I often wonder if I’m much too calm for something as serious in nature as this.  Truth be told, my thoughts the other day on bringing Sweet Pea to a doctor stemmed more from the fact that it’s what I should do, but not truly what I wanted to do.  I’m being brutally honest when I say here that I don’t trust in a doctor to actually search for the truth behind the cause without turning him into a human pharmacopoeia.  I don’t believe in testing for issues by seeing which drugs sedate him enough.  So I resist.

Homeschooling is another thing.  I am not a spirited, intense teacher to my kids who ensures that every moment at home is spent in the midst of text books.  Do you know what we did this morning?  I read the first 12 chapters of Midnight Sun on Ms. Meyer’s blog while the girls read their books.  We were all engrossed in our prospective novels and instead of saying, ‘girls you must stop reading in order to focus on such-and-such subject’, we instead read to the end of our books (except Bing, she’s in a doozy long one – Inkheart – that she can’t keep her nose out of).  I roll like that it seems.

I’m finding more and more events in my life not having the affect on me that they should.  I become nonchalant, complacent and take the relaxed road until things work out, and they invariably do work out.  I just wonder if this is a temporary change or if when a bigger event comes along (like adoption) will my lethargicness quickly switch to the ever in-your-face of my olden days?

I’m kind of liking it though.  It makes my days happier, every moment seems to be calmer, even those where my kids are trying my patience.  Some days where I think ‘if I hear MOM or Ma one more time I’ll break’, I still retain that sense of leisure.

I’ll keep it for now.  I’ll even use it until it becomes a burden to someone else, you know, when I’m too nonchalant to make sure the laundry is done and groceries are bought… kidding.