i’m the tortoise

As I have mentioned previously, I am far more motivated to exercise if I have a specific goal. Last year I bit off probably more than I could chew and decided to train for both the Portland half marathon in May, and the Tour de Victoria in June. Training was actually going okay until a trip to Saudi put the kibosh on the half marathon. This was probably a blessing in disguise. I went on to do the Tour and was very pleased with my ride.

This year, the Portland half marathon was in the plan from early on. Four friends did it last year and enjoyed it, and they are doing it again, this time with a bigger group, and also to celebrate a 40th birthday. I didn’t need much convincing. I always said if I did another half it would have to be in another city, and Portland is just fine with me. Plus it means a weekend away for Greg and I, sans kids. The only downside was that I wouldn’t be able to do the Tour, as I really didn’t want to train for both again.

But then a 2013 Tour de Victoria update came out, and they announced that the ride would be in September this year. I quickly calculated the number of months I had to train, assuming I wouldn’t start until after Portland, and decided that four months was just plenty. So I signed up for both.

The run is in three weeks, and I was very much on track training-wise until I got sick over a week ago. Just a cold, but it has wiped me out and I have no energy to run. I missed my long run (supposed to be 2:10) last weekend, and things weren’t looking good for this weekend either. But yesterday I decided I’d at least go out for half an hour today, even if it was painful. I woke up feeling a bit better, and felt like I was coughing less. I went to Elk Lake and ended up running 10K, but it was the slowest 10K I’ve ever done. So slow that I’m not sharing my time here. But I did it.

I know I’ll be fine for the race — I’m a slow runner at the best of times and my expectations are pretty low, but it still bums me out that I’ve missed two long runs. It seems to be the name of the game, though, training plans getting screwed up. Last year it was Saudi, and in previous years I’ve had other issues, one of which was a wasp sting on the bottom of my foot that sidelined me for a couple of weeks. The plus side to being sick now is that it’s unlikely I’ll be sick on race day. Fingers crossed.

five years

On this night five years ago, Greg and I put Elliot to bed, ordered in some Thai food and watched a really good movie about a pregnant teen. It was a Friday night and I was almost two weeks overdue with “Beet”, as she was called then.

In the early hours of April 5th, I woke up with contractions, and about four hours later Amy was born. She has brightened our lives since the day she arrived, and I am so looking forward to celebrating with her tomorrow.

She’s pretty excited too, as evidenced by this.

we survived

Elliot turned 7 on February 27. We marked the occasion with a family dinner, as per usual, and (drum roll please) his first “peer” birthday party. This is a big deal for me. I’ve been resisting birthday parties for a number of reasons, the biggest of which is Elliot’s personality. He doesn’t do well in large groups of his peers, and he really likes his alone time. But last year he started talking about wanting a party, and he’s come a long way socially, so Greg and I decided to organize one for him this year.

It wasn’t easy for me. I’ve been to a LOT of kids’ birthday parties over the last few years, and while my kids seem to have fun at the standard rec centre party, it just didn’t sit right with me (and yes, I admit it isn’t all about me, but it is about our family and our family values, and I wanted a party that aligned with those values). The big group parties seem too impersonal, and they are all priced for a large (by my standards) number of kids. I knew I wanted to keep things small, both for Elliot’s and my sanity. I spent way too much time thinking about the options, and I eventually decided we’d just do one at home. Elliot was happy with that, and he was happy with keeping it small. I asked him who he wanted to invite (without telling him what “small” was), and he listed three kids from his class, that was it. So that part was easy. I was a bit concerned about what we would actually do at home, and then a friend suggested an alternative — skating. I thought this was a great idea, and I knew two out of the three kids skated. I talked to Elliot and he was in.

Our local rink has skating parties, but for the reasons I mentioned above, I steered clear of those and just organized a time that corresponded to a public skate. The plan was to skate for a bit, and then walk back to the house to make pizza. This solved the “what are we going to do” problem, and kept things more personal.

The party was Saturday, and I’d say it was a success. The social dynamic with the four kids was a bit stressful for me because (without going into too much detail) three of them are alike and the fourth one is so obviously different from the other three…but they all seemed to have fun, and I think the dynamic was no different from what happens in their classroom, judging by the personalities. Elliot definitely had fun, which was obviously one of my goals. But I think my favourite parts (aside from seeing Elliot enjoying himself) were somewhat unrelated to the actual party. One was when C’s mum decided to stay. I just liked the fact that she wanted to — her daughter could have cared less and would have been just as happy with out her, but she felt comfortable staying, so she did. The other was when E’s mum arrived to pick up E, who wasn’t ready yet, so she just left her two older kids with us while she did some errands. Again, I liked the fact that she was comfortable doing that, and I really like her older kids. Both things just added to the personal nature of the party, which was exactly what I was hoping for.

it’s not entirely about blogging

Every time I read an old blog post I wish I blogged more. Does everyone love reading their own writing? I have no idea, but I sure do. I’m not even sure what exactly I like about it…I like being reminded of things that happened with the kids, but I also like reading content that’s not about the kids, even the most mundane things are interesting to me. Maybe because they happened to me?

Ironically, I also hate writing (and reading) blog posts about blogging, which is what I’m doing right now, but I’m here because I’ve decided to that I’ve just got to do it. Just blog. Just make it happen. It doesn’t have to be every day, or even every week. I just want to get to back to a state where I can accurately say “I blog” (not to be confused with “I have a blog”).

So, to prevent this post from being entirely about blogging, and to start the ball rolling, I’ll dive right in.

I’m sitting in a hotel room in Toronto (third time I’ve been in this particular hotel in the past three months) waiting to Skype with the kids. I’ve been doing about a week’s travel for December, January and February, and I’m thoroughly enjoying it. I’ve enjoyed the work, I’ve enjoyed the break from “home duties”, and I enjoy Toronto. Not that I’ve seen that much of it — I take the subway to work which involves me being outside for about two blocks. But I have walked around downtown a bit.

A week seems like the perfect amount of time to be away (for me…Greg may say something different). I typically have been leaving on Sunday and coming back Friday, and compared to the 16-day trips to Saudi, this is a cake walk. I miss my family, but just in that “it’ll be really nice to see them and hug them” way, not in the “oh my god I’m on the other side of the world and I feel so disconnected” way.

The other thing I’ve noticed is the more I fly, the less nervous I get (which statistically doesn’t make sense, because the more I fly the more chance I have of crashing). Sure, if I sit there on the plane thinking about how much distance is between me and the ground, I can work myself up a bit, but I can also easily distract myself. So really it becomes almost an enjoyable activity, especially if I have a good book or I can find a good movie.

This trip is likely the last one for a while, but I’m hoping I can still go away periodically. It makes for a nice change from being in the office.

Now I’m off to Skype with the kids…and tomorrow night I can give them that hug.

these are chores?

The kids have been doing a few jobs around the house for a while now, but it hasn’t been too arduous for them — clearing their dishes from the table, feeding Heart and cleaning their rooms was pretty much the extent of it. Greg and I have talked for a while about giving them more to do, and getting into more of a routine, but as with many conversations we have, we talked but there wasn’t a lot of action. We even talked about it with the kids, and they kept bringing it up with us, asking when they’d have their “chore chart”. That’s some spectacular parental laziness…when your kids are ASKING to do chores and you’re blowing them off.

So…we finally said we’d start them after Christmas, so in early January I finally sat down and put together a chore chart. It’s a thing of beauty, I must say. It has a green (Elliot’s favourite colour) and pink (depending on the day, Amy’s favourite) border, green and pink tags to identify each child, graphics to identify the job, and it lists what jobs each child has to do on each day of the week. The chart hangs on our fridge, and it’s a thing of beauty from another perspective as well. The kids (Elliot especially), actually look at the chart each day, figure out what they need to do…and do it. We’ve had a little complaining from Amy when she has to clean her room, but previously we had a LOT of complaining in this department, and from Elliot we are getting no complaining whatsoever. He really seems to enjoy checking what he needs to do and getting it done.

The amount of work they have to do hasn’t gone up all that much: they alternate days setting and clearing the table, Elliot feeds Heart, Amy feeds Aphro, and they clean their rooms/put their laundry away two days a week (or more if asked). The fact that it’s running so smoothly has surprised me, but the other thing that’s surprised me is how much it helps me. Having the table set for dinner is a really nice bonus, and not putting their laundry away is just plain awesome. Plus, because they have set days for putting laundry away, it means I’ve put myself on a regular schedule for doing laundry and I no longer feel like I’m doing it every day.

And the other pleasant surprise has been the table setting…the first night Elliot did it he put stuff in all the “wrong” places and it looked messy. I was going to teach him how to set a table properly, but I got sidetracked (and I think in the back of my mind I realized it wasn’t that important). Then at some point during that first week, both kids started to get creative with their table setting, and each night it’s been something different. And I’m loving it. Who cares if my table isn’t set “properly”? Each night is a work of art created by one of my children.

I’ll enjoy it while it lasts.

last but not least, amy

Seems like a fine subject to talk about for my last NaBloPoMo post this year…my little girl.

I’m glad I’m the youngest of four, because if I wasn’t, I think I’d be a bit worried at the mental energy I expend on parenting Elliot compared to parenting Amy. I think it’s out of balance. But I never felt any less loved than the rest of my siblings, so hopefully Amy knows how much she is loved. My gut feeling is that it’s because of personality as opposed to birth order.

To put it bluntly, I have absolutely no concerns about how Amy will make her way in this world. From day one she has been crystal clear about what she wants, and she’s not afraid to ask for it. Many times. She also has an ability to take things in stride. This may not be obvious in our day-to-day household operations (there is lots of drama), but in general, she just rolls with things. And if she isn’t rolling with it, she’s letting you know what her problem is with it. Many times. To my untrained eye (see previous post about Greg and I not being psychologists), it seems like she was born with confidence. And I’m very thankful for that.

So the drama. There is lots of it. It can be very entertaining (especially when there’s a third party in the house who sees the humour in it) and it can be very exasperating. Greg and I are often telling each other to take a deep breath. I think we also need to be more aware of the fact that our kids (shockingly) are very different. And where Elliot is somewhat oblivious of the disengagement approach, Amy is totally affected by it. So just walking away can really have a positive effect on her behaviour. Along the same lines of recognizing our kids are different, we also need to remember that she’s still only four. Not that having high expectations for your kids is a bad thing, but we need to keep in mind that she’s not six. On the other hand, the drama also has a very positive side, and I am at a loss for words in how to explain some of her facial expressions and body language. Even the way she moves through the house (often at breakneck speed) is comical.

She loves music, and I’ve easily got her hooked on some of my favourite songs. Tonight we watched Rio and she was dancing her way through the closing credits, in her underwear. Some of my happiest parenting moments have been holding her hands and dancing with her.

I think she’s going to like school, but I think we will likely get a few comments on her inability to focus. We’ll see how the next year goes, but she can flit from one thing to the next very quickly. I worry with Elliot going through school before her that she will be compared to him, but this hopefully will be where her confidence kicks in. And there is no doubt that she will excel at lots of things.

Her play is very imaginative, and I’ve had some great fun listening to her monologues as she plays out different parts of her scenarios. She also likes to move things. She brings toys from her room to other parts of the house all the time, and finding things is sometimes a challenge.

I said earlier this month that she has a very unique style when it comes to how she dresses, and she can get quite attached to her clothing, even if she doesn’t wear an item very often (or ever). I no longer tell her when I am going to donate something because it’s too small. It just disappears in the laundry (and then appears on the two-year-old next door, which has created a couple of issues — oops).

I am so looking forward to watching her grow up and seeing how her confidence and sunshine affect how she lives her life. So far it’s been a great ride.

elliot

Elliot had a skating field trip at school today that I was able to go to. Today’s trip was his third school skating trip — he had two last year while in kindergarten. I’ve been able to go all three times.

The first time we went, he waited by my side until I had my skates on and was ready to go. We got on the ice and he promptly burst into tears. A few of his classmates asked him what was wrong, but he didn’t answer. I’ll never know exactly how Elliot feels in these situations, but I think the best description is overwhelmed. Lots of kids and an activity he was new at (he’d been taking lessons for a few weeks). He eventually stopped crying, but he didn’t let go of my hand.

The second trip, he waited for me again, but there were no tears, and he did some skating with his friends.

Today, as soon as I got his skates on, he was off. By the time I got to the ice he’d been skating for five minutes on his own, and he didn’t even notice I was on the ice at first. Then he proceeded to skate, skate and skate. He didn’t hold my hand once, and apart from one skate around the rink together, he was off with his friends.

I knew I was going to write about Elliot tonight, and as I watched him today, I realized that this progression from the first skating trip to the third mirrors Elliot’s life in general. He has always been uncomfortable in new situations, especially those with lots of his peers. But if you give him time, he eventually warms up and has a great time. Greg and I used to struggle with how much to push him and how much to give in to his fears, but I’ve noticed in the past couple of years that I don’t agonize over how much to push. I just trust my instincts. No, I will never know exactly he feels, but his reactions are so normal to me that I just take it in stride. We’ve also starting talking more about how he’s feeling, how it’s normal (for him, anyway) to feel nervous, and that the sick feeling in his stomach is related to his emotions. It helps that both Greg and I suffer from a bit of social anxiety in new situations, so we understand where he’s coming from.

So that’s one aspect of my almost seven-year-old son. Another one that stands out, partly because it kind of contradicts what I’ve written above, is how engaging he is with adults. He’s always been physically attractive to people (who can resist those beautiful blue eyes??), but coupled with that, he feels quite comfortable around adults and happily talks to them. Today when I met him at the school for the field trip, I had a chance to watch him in the playground for a few minutes before the lunch bell rang. He was having a great time running around (or at least he looked like he was). And then one of the other mothers from the class walked up to him and he immediately gave her a big hug. He knows her, but not really well.

Over the last year he’s turned into a boy. Not a young boy. A boy. He has voiced his opinion about his hair and has asked me to stop shaving it, and I think the length of it makes him look older. But it’s his mannerisms and the way he speaks as well. We were at a birthday party last weekend, and in his goody bag were some little containers of play doh. I commented to both kids that they’d received a fair bit of new play doh recently, and Elliot replied, “Yes, play doh has become quite popular lately, hasn’t it?” Stuff like that comes out of his mouth all the time.

He is loving school, which is no surprise. I find it hard when the other school parents tell me how smart he is, especially when he’s standing right there. Mostly because I don’t know how to respond, as it feels like they are comparing him to their children. It was nothing Greg or I did, it’s just him. And yes, I’m thankful. I’m also thankful that there are a bunch of really bright kids in his class, and he’s not “the smartest”.

Socially, he gravitates to girls more than boys. He’s been the only boy at several birthday parties, which doesn’t phase him at all. I sometimes joke that my kids are have stereotypically reversed genders. Elliot’s the one who can sit still, who can focus on a single activity for a long time, even from a young age. It’s funny watching the two of them watch TV, because Elliot almost looks comatose, and Amy doesn’t stop moving.

And he has a temper. I’ve written about it plenty of times on this blog. When he is mad, he makes it abundantly obvious, and he uses his voice and body to make his point. I don’t struggle with how to react to his anxiety, but I sure struggle with how to react to his anger. I am fairly sure that if Greg and I were to parent him a bit differently, we could avoid some of the outbursts, or at least diffuse them more easily. But we don’t know the perfect formula, and being parents, not psychologists, we probably never will. Although there have been a couple of books recommended to me recently that I will try to find the time to read. Things are better than they were three years ago, the year of hell, but there’s room for improvement, if only in how Greg and I react.

I think the thing that I’m enjoying most right now is related to his becoming “a boy”. I get little glimpses into what the next few years will be like as he gets older and we’re able to communicate at a more even level. I feel a different connection with him than I did when he was a pre-schooler. Which I guess is obvious, but it feels pretty cool to experience it happening. And he makes me laugh, which I absolutely love.

she’s no slouch

Greg is currently teaching my 78-year-old mother how to use Twitter. We often have to show her how to do things several times when it comes to technology, but I have to give her credit. She has a desktop computer, an iPad and a Samsung smart phone (some bad advice there, should have got an iPhone so there’d be one less user interface to worry about), and she uses them all. Her iPad is her favourite. She uses it for email, games, news and now Twitter (if she can figure it out).

At her age, she could have easily shunned technology, especially the tablet and phone mediums, and that would have been perfectly acceptable. But she believes in challenging her brain. I sometimes get frustrated with her when I’m trying to explain something over the phone, but I really do admire her. I think she’s brave to take these things on, and she’s always trying to pick up something new.

And with her 78-year-old bones, it’s hard for her to get down on the floor and play with the kids, but she’s spent many a happy hour cuddled with them on the couch, iPad in hand, while they play Scrabble, watch National Film Board films, and learn from each other. A side effect of the iPad that I never anticipated.

it’s going to be a hard one to finish

A couple of weeks ago, Greg, the kids and I were all in Kaboodles looking for a birthday present for my nephew. (Well, I was looking for the present and the other three were drooling over all the toys.) Greg brought over a 1000 piece Christmas puzzle I’d seen earlier, to see if I was okay with getting it. We had already talking about possibly getting one that we would do each year, and he’d picked one that I liked, so I gave him the thumbs up.

We weren’t going to start it until December 1, but tonight we had an early dinner, my Mum is here (she won’t be here on December 1), and it just seemed like a good night to start it. So we did. Amy spent about 15 minutes helping sort pieces, and then lost interest. Elliot, Gran and I worked on the edges and Greg eventually joined us.

We were progressing quite well when I started getting annoyed at the licking Sheba, my Mum’s dog, was doing right near me. I told her to stop, but she continued. A few minutes later Greg figured out she was chewing on something, and made her drop it. It looked like a blue piece of paper. Greg walked over to the garbage holding it, and just as he was about to throw it away, he exclaimed, “Oh NO!”

The paper was actually a puzzle piece, soaking wet and mangled beyond repair. My Mum felt horrible, but we figured it will be a good story. We’ll do the puzzle each year, minus one piece, and remember the time that Sheba had an extra snack.

i think she’s pissed!

On Sunday night, Greg and I headed to bed, later than we wanted, as usual. It was a busy weekend and I was looking forward to climbing into my nice flannel sheets. As we were closing up shop and heading upstairs, we heard the telltale noises of Heart about to toss her cookies. Greg ran downstairs to try to let her out before she puked. You have to give her credit, she got as close to the front door as she could, and then let go.

One puke is almost always followed by another with her, but she’d deposited her dinner so close to the front door that Greg couldn’t open the door to get her out. He frantically tried to get her to the kitchen door, but she only managed to get to the other end of the hallway before the second wave hit.

Ok, two piles of puke to clean up. Greg did the worst part of the deed while I offered moral support and gave the floor a spritz and a wipe.

Off we go up to bed, delayed by ten minutes or so. We brushed our teeth, etc, then headed into the bedroom to change. I picked up my pajamas off the bed and noticed a wet spot underneath them. Aphro had peed on my pj’s and it had gone through them and onto the duvet. This was the second time she’d peed in our bedroom that day — in the morning I went to put on a top that had been lying on the floor overnight and it was sopping wet and stinky.

So we had to change the duvet (thankfully we have more than one)…more delays and no more flannel.

We are pretty sure the reason she’s peeing in the bedroom as opposed to her litter box is because we have two extra dogs in the house. But she’s being pretty immature about it, because there is a big gate up that prevents the dogs from getting anywhere near her as she makes her way from our bedroom to the basement. Not to mention that the two extra dogs sleep in a bedroom behind a closed door all night. AND, she seems to be able to eat her food, which is less than a foot away from her litter box.

But it didn’t end there. Last night I had finished getting ready for bed (again it was later than I wanted it to be) and I pulled back the duvet to climb in. And there, on my side of the bed was a wet spot the size of a large platter. This was on the sheet, and the duvet had been covering the sheet. I checked the duvet, and sure enough it was soaked through. So we changed the whole fucking bed (going back to the duvet that had been peed on the night before), cursing the cat the whole time.

The litter box is now in the bedroom — temporarily until the extra dogs vacate the premises. If this doesn’t work we are locking her up somewhere. (Although last night I have to admit to having thoughts of changing her from an inside cat to an outside cat and just letting fate take over…)