Times are a Changin'

I just finished a jam packed 3 days at Blissdom Canada. And although I didn't leave there getting as much from the sessions this year as I did last I did get some other very important things.

I learned that I am going to blog again and I am going to write about what I want to and not care what people think. For years now (after our world fell apart) I have held back. Worried about what people will think, but not anymore. I need to share, bottling everything up is only hurting myself.

I learned that keeping it all to myself makes me feel like an outsider. I walked around Blissdom wondering who I was and who were all the people around me.

I learned that it is time to take care of myself. Stop caring what others think, care what I think. I just found a post from a year ago where I stated that I didn't recognize myself when I looked in the mirror. WOW if that year ago me saw me now...

I learned that it is going back to basics. I found that in the rat race I lost what it was all about. No more and that excites me!

I learned that I should be darn freaking proud of myself for growing Grace Announcements from nothing to something in 6 years all by myself. October 19th is the 6th birthday for the official website launch.

I learned that I have some amazing people behind me and the ride to the future will be an amazing one with them by my side.

I learned that my kids and husband are the absolute most important things in my life. Without them nothing else matters.

So as I gain my thoughts, and there are so many floating around (I think I probably have 100 blog posts right now) I will start getting them out.

No more wishing I just had someone to talk to.

Are they out to get me?

This summer was a no plan summer for us. I have no realized that was the stupidest decision I could have made. With moving (into a brand new house where I can't kick them outside) and running my business having the kids home with me all summer long has made me nuts... even if I had wanted to putting the two of them in camp all summer long wasn't in the cards so I just had to make the best of it.

I have tried so hard. Realizing that they are probably acting out because they are bored or want attention. So I would stop to take a break for a day and take them to the park or do something that they want to do. That didn't help at all.

I pulled out my trusty Ain't Misbehavin' book by Alyson Schafer and tried the techniques.

They spent a lot of time at my moms who lives up north and of course the entire time they were there they were angels.

But when they are here with me they are out to get me! Really, I am not being all mellow dramatic about this.  Still don't believe me? Here are some examples:

1. They decided to play hair salon and Kal tried to give Miss E a makeover. Well she ended up with a half mullet. I had the pleasure of noticing this while standing in line at the post office waiting to ship orders out. I think he was lucky about that because I couldn't freak out. I told him the moment we got home he was going to his room and he could stay there until Dad got home.  He did this before 2 years ago to her... so they were told that if I ever find them use scissors on anything but paper without my permission they will never use scissors again in my house, I don't care if they are 25 and still living at home.

2. Then there was the water fight yesterday. I was lucky to discover this when my girlfriend stopped by with her daughters for a visit. For some reason my kids decided that it would be fun to pour buckets full of water all over Miss E's bed and floor. Didn't say anything about it so it sat for 4-5 hours before I walked into her room while showing my girlfriend around. The floor was so wet that in seconds large bath towels were soaked to the point that they weighed 10lbs each. Her floor is still damp.

3. Today they took a Costco sized of ginger cookies and jumbo bag of pretzels and poured them all over the living room floor, and then they filled glasses of juice with cookies so they became a sloppy mess. Ground some of this mess into the carpet of our brand new home.

I feel like I could go on for hours about all of the stuff that they have done.

I took them to the store, bought back to school supplies, we went out for lunch and they got a treat and 30 minutes after we return home they do this because I am on the phone with my mom for a few minutes.  This is the same person that they just spent 5 days at and were great kids.

So why do they only do this to me?

They don't do this to their Dad, sure they still give him a hard time but nothing like me... I can punish them, I can yell and scream, I can try talking calmly to them - nothing works.

Are they conspiring to make me crazy? If so they are succeeding! I am wishing I could have a huge glass of wine at 10am just to calm down and get through the day. Good thing I am not a big drinker or I probably would be having one.

I wanted to really enjoy the last couple of weeks of the summer with them but now I just want them to go back to school.  How horrible does that sound? I admit it, I am counting down the days and hours until they are back in school and gone all day from 8:45am to 4pm.

Makes me sad as the only summer memories we have is them driving their mom into the nut house.

Next year they will be in camp for at least 3/4 of the summer, I don't care if I have to get a 3rd job to be able to make it happen. They can drive someone else crazy!

Feel so sorry for their Montessori teachers in 2 weeks when they return to school as crazy people. Although they will probably act like angels for them, cause that is what they do. Perfect angels all day at school and start fighting with each other the second we get into the car when I pick them up at the end of the day.

Why do the kids drive only me crazy?

Kids were giving issues with going to bed so I sat down with them and asked "why they love to do this to me and never to Daddy. I took them to the park today for hours and now I need to work" so they go upstairs and start acting up again, I go up there and Ella gets all upset and says I don't like her!
Not very often, but even his brother confirmed on Friday that they are always fine with him and go to bed so easily. I think they know I need to be busy and try to take advantage. I think when they go back to school I am going to need to take a big break from night time working and train them both. They stay up way to late and it isn't good for them or me. I need my time.
I should try the ignore thing for a week, see if that helps any. They seem to fight me wanting them to go to bed, so they are up there acting out more. Maybe if I ignore them they will stop.

I was very on top of things with the kids, they had routine and listened to me. What happened?

Mine are good kids, I have to remind myself of that during those times that I am ready to sell them!

They make me stronger.

"Mom" Friends

Recently I have been thinking about mom friends. You know the ones who you can get together with, your kids play together and you chat about life.

I recently moved and have been spending a lot of time at our new park, there is a great splash pad and park with a covered area with benches and tables.  As I sit there I notice the ladies chatting, their kids are all playing and the moms are talking and enjoying themselves.  I sit there by myself with my iPhone, Facebook and Twitter.  While all of those are great I miss the actual company of a physical human beside me.

I don't notice it all that often but it seems to really be in my face at the park. Could be because I work at home all day by myself.

Yes I just moved into a new neighbourhood and I still need to meet people, but even in my old neighbourhood I went to the park by myself. People were a lot friendlier there.  While we live in this great new neighbourhood there are no kids around us.  Makes me sad as we had that in our old house, up until the last month when a great family moved in with 3 boys the ages of my kids.

So tonight at dinner I started thinking to myself about how sad it makes me that I don't have any mom friends who I can call and ask them to meet me, or ones that call me.

Sure I have friends, not like I am all pity me because I am a friendless loser.

But when my kids were little I had "Mom" friends that I regularly saw, our kids played and we chatted about life. I met a great group when my 1st was born, we still continued our regular play dates as we all started having 2nd kids but then something happened...

I started Grace Announcements when my son was 1 and by the time my daughter was born I was busy. I didn't have as much time, I needed to use nap time for working not forgoing it for human contact. And now that I am at a point in my life where I want it, it isn't there.

Shows the importance of nurturing friends along with family. With making it a priority to stay in contact with friends.  While I know that I will have friends in my life that will always be there, no matter how much time goes by it doesn't matter.  We can pickup right where we left off. I am very lucky to have a lifelong friend like that, unfortunately she lives in Ottawa so we don't get to just see each other whenever we want.

Do you make it a priority to keep all your friends close? Or do you have friends which whom you have grown apart from?

But then you have friends who you put a lot of effort into, you try to contact, you try to setup "dates" but it never works out.

Do you forget about them?

Does it also get to a point in life where you have friends who are moms but you don't ever get together with kids?

Well hello there, I have missed you!

It has been way to long, but I have had major writers block... well I have had lots to write about but I could just not get the words out so that they made sense.  Over the past 6 months there has been lots that I would love to share and here I am tonight I could write forever, but I promise I will spare you all.   Instead I am going to just spit it out in little bits that might not make sense but I need to restart and this is the only way for me to do it.

2010 sucked ass (don't know why you can read here). I know it could have been much worse. We are all healthy and really that is all that matters.

We made it through. DH is working at a great company, has a great job, and loves what he does. He started enjoying making music with some friends and what started as a fun Friday night jam session has turned into The Bird of Rage. The kids have settled and are doing really well, Kal is just about to finish grade 1. He is so smart and loves his school and teacher. The progress he has made this year has been huge, nice to see after a huge life change. Miss E loves being in school full time, I admit I miss her at times and wonder if I should have kept her home with me longer.  But I think even though she is still so young this is best for her. She loves school and has started reading and writing. She is learning french which is amazing for a 1st year Casa student. I think French Immersion might be what she needs in grade 1.

I had high hopes for 2011 and although it didn't suck like 2010 did it hasn't been what I had hoped.

After April 20th, 2010 happened I had no choice but to step up to the plate and take care of this family. I did my best to shelter the kids from everything. To hide that their dad was so depressed and fragile I was scared to leave him alone. Work hard to keep food on the table and a roof over our head. And not let the people around me know that my world had just fallen apart and I was not sure if I could keep it from crumbling. Very hard to do when I spend so much time out in the open.

I got tired of pretending like my life was okay, but I felt I had no choice.

The new year came, the kids went back to school, DH started his new job and I was here all alone. I had no one to take care of, nothing to distract me from the past 10 months. I sat and I started to think.... it all hit me and it hit me hard.  I hid within myself and the lie that everything was okay.

Now today I sit here, clear again, with an extra 20lbs of fat feeling sorry for myself. I know that I need to do something but I just can't. I weigh more now than after having both kids. I wish I was the type of person who stress made me lose weight, instead I gain it. I am not an emotional eater that just shoves my face full of anything around, I barely eat now. But that doesn't help.

I am lucky to have great people in my life. People who stand beside me, who hold me up and who keep me going.

I refuse to give up just yet. 2011 will be a great year, might just take a little longer to get there.

The "kins of ifone's" from a 6 year old

My son drew this tonight in bed and brought it down all excited to show me.  Yes folks we are one crazy iPhone house!  The first is the ifon4, this is daddy's phone, then it is my son's and my ifone (yes we both just have the boring old 3G) and the bottom one is the baby version of an ifone.  Guess that is what his little sister gets to play with!

I unfortunately was not able to scan it all, but his title was the same as mine "kins of ifone" for Kinds of iPhones. I love how on the iPhone 4 the game he drew is called corn pops, where you launch corn pops.  I thought it was his favourite, angry birds!

Avoidance... of the big "C" word

Tomorrow I will set foot back in the Odette Cancer Centre at Sunnybrook Hospital for genetic screening and counselling.  It has been over 3 years since I was last there.  I had a newborn baby and a 2.5 year old at home.  I had to wait at that time as I was breastfeeding, best to come back when I was done. That was the recommendation from them.  Well after 2 years of breastfeeding and moving I lost touch and the information. They didn't have my new contact information and I put it into the back of my mind. I had more important things to think about.

Crazy to think that way.

You see I have a family history.  My paternal grandmother, Grace, whom I never met as she died really young (with a baby of her own, my aunt) from breast and ovarian cancer.  My aunt who was diagnosed with colon cancer in her early 40's with 3 young kids.  I remember thinking, how?  I went onto Google and searched to find that breast, ovarian and colon cancer are all linked.  She fought and won that battle, but a few years later she was diagnosed with breast cancer.  She is fighting that battle and winning. Because it is on my paternal side it doesn't mean that there is not a huge risk for me.  My father can carry the gene and pass it to me, without me really knowing.  Many men carry the gene, but don't always develop breast cancer themselves.

Seeing my aunt recently and talking to her about life has reminded me of how precious it is.  My aunt and I always had a really close relationship.  She was young, much younger then my dad, she was the small child that was left behind with no parents.  We had something special, something that I have always cherished.

I started to think about my history and my risks.  I started to question as to whether I would like to know, or whether I would rather just enjoy my life without the possibility of knowing I carry the BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene and could very well end up fighting the battle against breast cancer myself.  I started to have friends who were dealing with cancer themselves or their very close family and I stopped....

I stopped and I thought long and hard.

I realized that it was important to know.  That I was being silly being scared of the "what ifs" and I was better to be proactive and if I got some news that I didn't want to hear I would not be scared, I would just start to do what I need to and enjoy my life.

So tomorrow afternoon I start the process again.

I am not going to lie, I am scared.  I remember sitting there in this centre with my tiny baby at my side, looking around and seeing the people there for tests, for treatments.  The families with them.  I could see the fear in their eyes, and that gave me fear, fear of the unknown.

I don't want to be there.  I don't want to be thinking of this.  But I think I am stupid to not, so I will.