Plug for The Canadian Cancer Society

OK, boys and girls! This June, Liz is once again going to be cutting all her hair off (leaving juuuuuuust enough for a fauxhawk this time) to raise money for the Canadian Cancer Society!

For those of you who remember, when she did it when she was 9, she raised $3298.

We are hoping to beat that number this time around, and make an even bigger donation to a very good cause!!!

You can donate in cash, by email money transfer, by coming directly to Liz, Jason or myself, or online at: http://fundraiseforlife2012.kintera.org/faf/donorReg/donorPledge.asp?ievent=492657&supid=355560506

If you're willing, we will even take the pennies from your car ashtray. No joke.

Come on, everyone! Let's do some good this spring!

The Down Side

There are lots of cool things about having kids. Today's post has nothing to do with any of them.

This is about the down side.

Kids are gross. They have very little control of their bodies, and as a result, much of what happens to their bodies gets splattered around for all the world to see.

Boogers run out of their noses. Hideous-smelling farts escape uncontrollably. Poop leaks out of the backs of their diapers. They pee in the tub. And they vomit.

Oh, man, the vomit.

My poor little Squiddie just got over a nasty stomach flu (only to be immediately followed up by croup, but that's neither here nor there.)

I spent all of Thursday night sitting up with him, either at his bedside with a bucket, or perched on the edge of the tub, rubbing his back as he ridded himself of every food he had eaten since the time of his birth. I always feel so bad for kids when they throw up. It's such a primal function, and there is nothing you can do or say to make it any less horrible. We tried giving him Pepto Bismol, but he couldn't keep it down for more than 5 minutes, so rather than continuing to replenish his digestive system with barfable substances, we gave up and decided to wait it out.

Finally, at about 6:30 Friday morning, the vomiting slowed down, then stopped (at which point Isaiah started to puke, but at least he was a little less labour-intensive than Squid, and all I had to do for him was call his school, fetch a glass of water and turn up the heat).

I ran out to Safeway and picked up about 32 bottles of ginger ale and some more Pepto, and when I got home, settled Squid onto the couch and Isaiah into his bed with nice glasses of flat, clear liquid, and spent the rest of the day on the couch with Eva, hoping I wouldn't get sick till after she did.

I was worried that Squid couldn't keep anything down, so I made sure he had a sip of ginger ale every 20 minutes or so, to keep him hydrated, and by about 3 that afternoon, when everything had stayed where it belonged, I started to feel brave.

First I gave him some Children's Tylenol to bring his fever down (which he chased with a bit more ginger ale because Tylenol tastes like 'fruit, but nasty fruit', and he needed to get it off his tongue), and after a few moments, let him go downstairs to play XBox.

He came up a while later when Jason got home from work, and asked if he could have a freezie, because he was still overheated and wanted something to eat. I figured he had last thrown up more than 8 hours ago, so a freezie couldn't hurt, grabbed him one, and sat him down on the couch to eat it.

I knew I had pushed my luck too far when the expression on his face changed suddenly and he sat bolt upright, screeching "Where's my bucket? Where's my bucket?" Ah, yes. Helpful bucket. I had been lulled into a false sense of security. It was downstairs, next to the XBox. All fresh and clean and lined with a plastic bag, and of absolutely no use to anyone.

I grabbed his hand, yanked him off the couch and started to sprint for the bathroom. I really, truly believed we could make it (but then, I also believe that saying the word 'snow' out loud in June will cause the inevitable to happen, so I am probably not a reliable predictor of future events). Right as we stepped off the area rug onto laminate floor (in retrospect, I guess I should be grateful that we had stepped off area rug onto laminate floor), he erupted. Since we were running and he was facing forward, the vomit naturally sprayed in our direction of travel, creating a giant puddle of blue-tinted ginger ale in our path.

Mother Nature had laid her little trap.

As he started to round the corner into the hallway, his bare feet skidded in the puddle of barf. He struggled, almost righted himself, and, just when I though we would make it, he went down, taking me with him.

He lay on his back in the pool of liquid sugar, head turned to the side as he continued to empty his stomach, while I (for a split second, but it seemed like days) debated my next course of action. Finally, I grabbed him under his (oh, so warm and sticky) armpits, hauled him up, and carried his still-vomiting little body to the bathroom, leaving a dripping river of happiness along our path.

Jason, who had (Miraculously??? Or on purpose??? You decide....) missed the entire event, was in the kitchen, and as I called him to come help me, I realised that Eva, who loves nothing more than to tag along behind Squid everywhere he goes, was on the verge of following our nasty little trail down the hallway. I ran back into the living room, picked her up (touching as little of her as possible), and handed her to Isaiah, who looked very much as though he was going to have to find a bucket himself. I ran upstairs and grabbed as many towels as I could without having to touch anything else in the linen closet, and while Jason sat with Squid (who was fine now, as the worst had already happened) on the bathroom floor, I started to clean up the mess.

Honestly, I was lucky. There were no identifiable chunks, designed to turn me off of food for 6 months, and the liquid was virtually clear and non-staining. I didn't even gag once. I cleaned everything up with the towels, mopped the floor with super hot water, and ran it all (including my clothes, as the hems of my pants were starting to stiffen) down to the washing machine and set it to 'Obliterate'.

Feeling as though that whole awful situation had been MUCH easier to deal with than I originally thought it would, I threw on another outfit, washed my hands (twenty or thirty times), checked on Jason, Isaiah, and Eva (who were hiding out in the kitchen), and walked into the living room.

And there, laying back down on my living room couch, crusty hair matting into a solid block of drying blue raspberry, head perched exhaustedly on a throw pillow, shirt and underwear soaked through and reeking of barf, covered with a (no longer) clean quilt, was my darling Squid.

Some days, the only thing keeping me sane is knowing that it will be REALLY funny later.

How My Mother Ruined My Life (Part 2 Of 7,000,000,000)

So, when my sister and I were little, we went through a phase where we would run around the house screaming "Fire! Fire! Fire!", because it was funny to watch everyone come running. This phase only lasted a week or so, because we got in major trouble for doing it. (Remember this.)

Mom is super crafty. When we were growing up, she crocheted, she hooked rugs, she painted plates with birds and flowers, and she did that weird thing where you curl the paper around a tiny metal hook and schmeared it with glue and made 3-dimensional landscapes and country scenes in a frame (she knows what it's called, but I'm pretty sure no one else does).

Anyway, because of her incredible talent for building something out of nothing, slapping it with a coat of lacquer, and producing a masterpiece, craft times as kids were pretty fun.

One day, as the afternoon wore on and mom had no idea what to do with me, we found there were no cool craft supplies in the house. So she had to fall back on the egg carton caterpillar- you know the one I'm talking about. If you've had kids and ever run out of fun stuff in that ugly hour between Lego and dinner, you've probably made one. Half an egg carton, a pipe cleaner, googly eyes and a few markers, and you're good to go.

So mom and I put this caterpillar together, and when we reached the end of our project, she realized we had no pipe cleaners. Being that she's super mom, she had no problems coming up with a solution- she grabbed a few matches out of the jar above the stove, jammed them through the cardboard, and I was good to go.

I spent the rest of the afternoon in my room playing with that thing (did we all have longer attention spans back then, or did the lead paint on our walls just make us all mildly slow? I ask because there's no WAY any of my kids would have played for 3 hours with some crappy 3 cent craft...), and the inevitable finally happened. As I was 'crawling' the caterpillar along my (toxic-paint-covered) wall, I accidentally managed to strike one of the (unburnt) matches, which flared up and immediately ignited the cardboard body.

I instinctively threw the thing away from me as fast and as far as I could, which was, unfortunately, in the direction of my bed. When the bedding lit up and started to REALLY smolder, I did the only thing I could think of and threw open my door and tore down the hallway, screaming "Fire! Fire! Fire!"

(Here's where mom's bad planning and my stupidity cross paths and nearly disfigure me....)

As I came flying around the corner into the kitchen, screeching at the top of my lungs, my father, who had just returned from work, scooped me up and growled, "We told you not to do that fire thing again. I've had it- you can sit in your room till dinner time."

WHAT?????

As we marched down the hallway to my room, I tried desperately to explain to my dad (who had heard it 736,591,374,019 times that week and was having NO more of it, thank you very much!) that it WAS a real fire, and I was telling the truth that time.

I will never forget the look on his face when he tossed open my bedroom door to see the smoke billowing out and my bed skirt in flames. It made the whole episode worth while. I've never seen anyone out side of a cartoon strip make that big, shocked 'O' with their eyes and mouth. Didn't actually know it could be done.

When my mother realised what had happened, she (understandably) felt horrible. Although 'playing with matches' is right up there with 'running with scissors' and 'taking candy from strangers', she was so desperate to entertain me that afternoon that she completely neglected to burn the match heads before she gave them to the 4 year old.

Luckily, I am here to remind her (every day, should the need arise), that craft time can kill.

I'm sure she's grateful.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Ode To The Men In My Life

(I have been saving this blog for a long time, trying to work up the courage to hit 'publish'. I have realized that there is no time like the present, which is why I have (shockingly) published my second blog of the day. Please forgive any spelling errors. Blame my blurred vision.)

I am going to be serious today.

Just today, I promise.

But there is a small, select group of people I need to thank, and as the years go by, I have started to lose some of them to age or illness, and the thought that I did not thank them while they were with us eats away at me every day. So I want to make sure that I express my gratitude to the rest of them while I still have the time. If you feel like this is not the type of blog you want to read, by all means, skip this one. It's not funny, or lighthearted, or amusing. But it needs to be written.

I have a hard time saying thank you to the people I really need to say thank you to from my childhood. I have a huge sense of shame (that I will never quite get past) for needing the help as much as I do, and it is so hard for me to tell these people to their faces. For years, I had a hard time even admitting it- it's hard for me just to think about. I am getting there, but it's taking time.

It's not that I am not grateful. Far from it. I am actually so grateful to these people that there are not enough words in all the languages of the world to make them understand how important they were. I need to say thank you in a very loud, very permanent way, and this is the best avenue I have.

Let me begin.

Some people, for whatever reason, because of outside factors, addiction, psychological makeup, personality, or mental illness, should not become parents. These may do well with smaller children, who are fairly pliable and easy to deal with, but when faced with pre-teens who argue, ignore, talk back and dismiss their opinions, are unable to make the adjustment. The caring, loving, attentive parent of a four year old may become the raging, angry, vindictive, unkind enemy of that same child at fourteen.

I had this type of father. I am past the anger now, and have come to terms with a horrible, horrible relationship. I have forgiven him (although I have not forgotten, nor do I choose to have a relationship with him), and I am doing my best to avoid the same pitfalls with my own children.

While my father emotionally (and, years later, physically) separated himself from his children, a group of wonderful, caring friends and neighbours stepped in. These surrogate fathers (and to no lesser degree, their families) are the sole reason I trust men today. They saved my sister and I when our mother was unable to do it all by herself, and they are the people who kept me from becoming an angry, bitter recluse.

In the last few years, three of these wonderful men have passed away. I wish to God I could say to their faces what I am about to say now.

Thank you. From the bottom of my heart and with every fibre of my soul, I thank you.

Grandpa. I can only remember once in my life that you ever raised your voice to me (and I REALLY deserved it!). You were the man who taught me that not all fathers scream. You taught me that an argument can be held without nastiness and unkind words. You stepped in when you knew I needed it, without being asked. You gave me away at my wedding. You WERE my father. I love you and I miss you. When you died, customers who hadn't seen you in fifty years wrote to tell us what a great guy you were. That's the kind of impression you made.

Joe White. You were the father of my best friend. You joked with me like I was a grownup, and actually listened seriously to my ideas. You picked up on the words I WASN'T saying, and you and Linda rescued me more times than I can remember. When my whole world was shattering (because, even with the misery of having him around, I preferred the 'normalcy' of knowing my father would be there in the morning when I woke up), and my mom was trying to hold herself together, your wife came to our house, brought me home with her (knowing that my mom was unable to help me herself just then), and you held me for hours as I sobbed. You taught me that recovery is possible, and that great men can surmount less-than-stellar pasts, and be wonderful people. I miss you every day.

Lorne Shields. You opened your home to my sister and I. When our space got just too horrible, middle of the night or not, you took us in. You heard the hideousness, and in a day and age where not a lot of people stepped up, you did your best to calm the storm. You and Maryanne fed us peanut butter and banana sandwiches (on WHITE BREAD!!!!!), let us sleep on the floor, and made us feel a little more powerful under powerless circumstances. You taught us to stand tall, and appreciate the tiny things. The hole you left behind is bigger than you ever could have guessed.

Chuck Faas. Your home was an oasis of calm in a world that sometimes seemed like it was spinning out of control. Although your children were older than my sister and I, you never lost your ability to relate to kids. You and Sandy took us in and told us the truth when our father didn't care enough and our mother was too heartbroken to do it themselves. You taught us to trust our guts and our intuition, and you taught us that safety was only 55 feet away. You taught me that chaos and eggshells were not the gold standard for fatherhood. I am grateful that I am able to tell you today how incredibly much you mean to me.

Uncle Dennis. When my father managed to alienate his entire family, and  left my mother, sister and myself drowning in a pool of loneliness, you made the first move to reconnect. You knew how important our relationship was, and how sorry we were to lose it. You inherently recognised how painful and embarrassing it was for us to come crawling back to a family so shamefully treated by my father, and you gave us time, and you opened your arms (and your heart), and welcomed us back in. You will always be my favourite. Although we don't see each other as regularly as we should, you have taught me that family is forever, and that anger and resentment doesn't matter. You are my only remaining connection to that side of the family, and I am deeply, deeply grateful for you.

Although other friends and neighbors, and the families of all these men, played a part in rescuing me, it is these few who hold a special place in my heart, because that was the role I so badly needed filled. When I am proud of my accomplishments, it is their opinions and respect that I crave. When I look at my family and think "Huh. I done good.", it is they that I picture standing behind me, smiling at my offspring.

I don't visit my old neighbourhood as much as I should, nor did I visit these men as much as they have deserved. It's still painful for me, and I tend to avoid these memories except on rare occasions, even though I live mere moments away. Sometimes I am lost for words, and sound silly and unimportant, and can't convey the depth of my feelings. To all of you, please know that it is not forgetfullness or uncaring that keeps me away, but the depth of my love and appreciation (as incredibly odd as that may sound).

But when I think of 'home' and 'childhood', your faces are the prominent ones in my mind's eye. You made me who I am today. All my successes are due in equal part to each of you. I am thankful for all of you every day. God knew what he was doing when he sent me to you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

How My Mother Ruined My Life (Part 1 Of 7,000,000,000)

Mom didn't like cooking.

That's not to say she wasn't great at it. When my sister and I were little, she canned beets and made homemade jams. She saved the carcasses of various fowl for soup bases, and her Yorkshire Puddings always rose perfectly. She had four hundred and thirty-three uses for a canned ham (including the can), and I still make her Foo Yung salad when we need to bring a dish to a potluck.

She threw incredible dinner parties with ridiculously good food. Remember the late '70's and early '80's??? THOSE dinner parties. The ones where the men wore their best fabric belts on their pleated pants, their wives showed up in their most colorful scarves, (elaborate knots faithfully recreated from the pictures in 'The Knaughty Look'), and you and your siblings got up real early the next morning to finish all the half-drunk Vodka Gimlets and Mai-Tais before your parents crawled out of bed.

Some of her recipes are legendary. Her crab quiche is PHENOMENAL, and people actually ask for it for Christmas (not for dinner, because then you'd have to share, but as a gift), and there have been actual physical fights (perpetrated by my husband and my cousin Connor) over the last scoop of her potato bake (which she will ONLY serve with ham, not turkey, which effectively halves the number of times we get to eat it, and therefore causes some serious holiday depression).

As wonderful a cook as she was, she didn't enjoy it so much that she wanted to spend each and every day cooped up in a kitchen, slaving over a hot fondue pot. As my sister and I got older, the Nanking Cherry Jam production slacked... then slowed... and then disappeared altogether in favour of Smucker's Strawberry. She started working (as she no longer needed to be at home during the day, ferrying small children to and from school), and began buying her boullion at the grocery store. Crab quiche (with the rising cost of seafood), became a delicacy served only on special occasions, and (insert trumpets and choirs of angels here) Friday liver and onion night disappeared right along with the no-good husband.

There were a few dishes that mom kept up with on a regular basis, because they were both incredibly tasty AND cost effective. Her chicken wings (she did something ridiculous to them that I STILL can't get quite right), her hamburger soup (a third generation of our family is now learning to ask for it for birthday dinners), and, of course, (oh, sweet memories of childhood), her pork chops.

They were amazing. Succulent, seared the PERFECT amount on the outside (she always used the thin ones so the fat would get extra crispy), with the smell making the entire neighbourhood salivate. Oh, my God. I'm pretty sure that's where the term 'better than sex' came from. They tasted mom's pork chops and nothing else ever really measured up again.

So after Jason and I moved into our (skanky) apartment after high school, I decided that the very first time we had someone over for dinner, I would make mom's pork chops (this had the added bonus of not requiring us to entertain for MONTHS, because we had to save up for the cost of the ingredients). Sure, every once in a while we would serve some unsuspecting coworker Safeway brand macaroni & cheese, or a bag of stale-dated chips from Liquidation World, but when we actually invited someone over for a MEAL, that's what I would serve.

And then it finally happened. We saved up enough money to invite a friend we'd had since junior high over for dinner (the requirement was that the dinner guest be single- we only had enough money for 6 pork chops). For confidentiality purposes, I will not name said friend, but he had almost the same name as an a.a. milne character. Let's call him...... Pooh the Winnie (If this seems confusing to you, don't worry- he'll get the joke. So will his parents. It's not about you.).

We cleaned up the apartment (super easy when you own 3 sticks of furniture and next to no clothing), went ingredient shopping, and I started to cook (following mom's handwritten directions on the recipe card with near-religious zeal). By the time Chris- er- Winnie showed up, my meal was perfect. It looked like mom's. It smelled like mom's. And oh, glory, best of all, it tasted like mom's.

I was ecstatic. I watched as Winnie lifted a forkful of pork chop, (slathered in gravy and served over rice) to his mouth, and nearly quivered with glee as he chewed, swallowed, and looked at me.

"That's awesome Heather," he said, "tastes great."

"Thank you," I trilled (in my very best 'shoulder pads and melted Velveeta' dinner-party voice), "it's my mom's recipe."

"Yeah?" asked Chris. "You know she got it off the back of a Campbell's soup can, right???"

 Golden.

Change

I don't like change.

Spontaneity bothers me.

I wanted to leave Europe because the towels felt different.

I try not to travel north, because the water in Edmonton smells funny.

I live in the same co-op I lived in as a little kid. It's less than fifteen blocks from the house in which I spent the majority of my childhood. And twenty blocks from the house Jason grew up in. His mom still lives there.

I still own sweatshirts from high school (Only now I use them as legwarmers. Or headbands.)

So when my coffeepot died last year, I was a wreck. We had this coffeemaker before we had kids. Mom bought it for us when we moved into our first apartment (she could have waited- we couldn't afford coffee), and it always, faithfully, served the perfect pot.

It saw midnight feedings and early mornings with all four of my babies. It woke us up on eighteen New Year's Days. It produced a peace pot when we talked after an argument. It had moved up the property ladder with us as we made our way to our current home. It was family.

Sure, over the years it took longer and longer to get the promised pot of coffee. Who cares??? With advanced age comes the right to slow down a little bit. Relax. Take things easy. Maybe the hot plate didn't keep the coffee as warm as it used to, but which of us doesn't find it a little harder to stay warm as we reach middle age? The water tank leaked a little, but anyone who doesn't expect a little incontinence in their golden years is kidding themselves.

We started to notice that the pots of coffee we brewed every morning were coming out less and less full (we credited that to the leaking water tank), and finally, one morning, after flipping the 'On' switch, nothing happened.

We did everything we could. We thumped it once or twice, to see if we could restart its vital systems. We plugged it into a different outlet, trying to see if we could continue life support. We ran some vinegar through it to see if any of the major arteries were clogged. We used every heroic measure we could think of.

Finally, I leaned over and patted it softly on the lid.

"It's ok." I said. "I understand. We'll miss you."

I couldn't believe it. It couldn't really be gone- we had been together for so long!!!

Maybe if I had taken better care of it. Run CLR through it every once in a while. Kept it away from the window on really cold winter days...

Who was this coffeemaker to just abandon me? To leave me behind like this? Alone and without caffeine? I run a DAYHOME, for God's sake! I NEED MY MORNING COFFEE!!!!!!!!!!!!

How was I going to make it through this? I just didn't have the strength for this kind of loss. The depression was crippling. I could barely move.

And then, finally, the pain began to lessen. The sun came up, and I was almost able to enjoy the sunrise. Maybe, just maybe, I could cope.

I found myself able to make decisions again. I was reconstructing my life in the face of my loss, and I knew things would be different, but it was time to move on.

And finally, I turned to Jason and told him I needed him to run to Wal Mart and pick up another coffeemaker. I could never have the carefree, untroubled cup of coffee that I had heretofore enjoyed, but I had accepted my loss, and once again had hope for the future.

(Note: The aforementioned stages of grief, as defined by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, were experienced by me over the half-hour period of time immediately following the expiration of said coffeemaker. People experience grief differently. There is no textbook 'order' in which you should feel these emotions, nor is there a 'correct' timeline until the final stage of acceptance and hope. If, however, you find yourself lying prone on the couch, sobbing hysterically into a crusty tea towel MORE than 11 weeks after the heating element in your toaster gives out, you may want to consult a professional. Maybe even two.)

Jason went to get a new coffeemaker. I knew it wouldn't be the same, and I knew I would always have a special place in my heart for the OLD coffeemaker, but I had high hopes.

I realised when he brought it home that it was going to require a period of adjustment. I found myself becoming jealous of the new coffeemaker. Jason paid it so much more attention than he paid the old one. He actually bought filters that fit the new coffeemaker (What? All of a sudden we're too GOOD to fold a basket filter into a cone??? The new coffeemaker needs fancy new stuff, so now we're just tossing away the 87365891029 basket filters left from the old one? Whatever.) He actually checked to make sure the level of the water in the pot was equal with the '12 Cups' line on the glass, rather than simply leaving it under the tap till it overflowed and dumping it blindly into the machine. Sure, the thing had some neat features. You could yank the pot out while it was brewing, and it would stop and wait for you to pour yourself a cup and replace the carafe, thereby avoiding the 'light-speed switch-and-splatter' we had been suffering with in the mornings. No one in our house has EVER waited for a pot to finish brewing before getting a cup of coffee. (Mostly because it took the old one 45 minutes to brew each pot.) He was infatuated. He was blinded to its faults.

It was ugly.

It was new.

It was....... different.

Things eventually got better, but it's still not the same. It's not my REAL coffeemaker. It's not the boss of me. I only use it cause I have to. Sure, the colour and appearance have grown on me. I actually kind of enjoy the taste of HOT coffee. I haven't had a splatter burn in months, and it doesn't give off a funny smell as it brews. But I know it's just trying to manipulate me. Win me over. Make me forget. It's not fooling me.

If you think for a SECOND I wouldn't take Old Faithful back if I had the chance, you're crazy.

I'm pretty sure I'm not.

Sweet Nothings

My sister in law gave Eva a package of Crayola Bathtime Tadoodles for Christmas. For those of you not in the know, these are floating tub crayons that wash off with warm water, and are encased in giant tubby cartoon-like bodies so chubby little hands can hold them easily.

Although Eva loves nothing more than to chew on a crayon, and was using them to great advantage, I couldn't help but do some thinking during bathtime the other day. I realized how wasted these crayons were on someone who couldn't even SAY "Surrealism', let alone explain how her Dali-esque style captured the vivid, mysterious dreams of a toddler during slumber. I bet you these things cost ten or twenty bucks! Could we not find a better use for them??? (Remember- control issues.)

A lightbulb went on. I realized that if I combined my constant desire for communication with my intense need to show my kids what a great mom I am, I could use these crayons for a new and improved purpose- sweet nothings!

I finished bathing Eva, sanitized the pee out of the tub (There's always some in there. I know it.), and scribbled on the wall in my best Mommy Dearest printing...

"What a great Christmas. I have an awesome family, and I love how polite and well behaved my children are, even when it's been crazy busy. You all make me so proud!
Love, Mom"

What a great way to wake up, I thought to myself. A little validation, a little boost to their self esteem, and every day would be a success! When they made their first million, they would not only dedicate the book to me, but 'Nurturing the Successful Adult' would be the first chapter. All about me.

The next morning, when I woke up after Jason left for work, I noticed he had added-

"Love you guys! Have a good day!"

Brilliant! It was so fun and easy that people were nearly COMPELLED to be kind to each other.

Liz chipped in that afternoon with the phrase,

"This is an awesome idea!"

And Squid wrote his name. Although Isaiah hadn't added anything to the wall yet, it was Christmas holidays and he hadn't actually been HOME for the past 2 days. HE could catch up later.

I should have known better.

This morning there was a little Darth Vader face drawn on the wall, with the words,

"Isaiah, Liz, Squid and Eva.... I AM YOUR FATHER." written below them.

Under that, in different handwriting, was the phrase,

"No- you're not."

Then, by a third separate author-

"Ooh- AWKWARD!"

It was beginning to take on the appearance of a bathroom stall in a gas station in Forest Lawn.

I warned the family that the Tadoodles were to be used for good, and not evil, but I can tell I am already fighting a losing battle.

I just now went upstairs to put away the towels, and underneath my inspiring, uplifting message to the kids wishing them a great first day back at school are the words,

"I see London,
I see France,
I see....
GROSS! PUT THAT BACK IN YOUR PANTS! I'M TELLING!!!!!!!!"

I give up.

Giving

I sit here, shopping done, house decorated, gifts wrapped, Christmas dinner prepped and ready to go in the oven at dawn (or whatever the hell time it is that cooking starts- Jason does all that. I serve booze and make gravy). I am ready. Bring it on.

Given a few minutes of down time, I have a chance to appreciate what Christmas is and how grateful I am. I think a lot about gratitude at Christmas. Our kids are spoiled rotten every year, always getting a few things they desperately want, a few things they didn't know they wanted, and a few things they didn't really want (Underwear. Every year. Love, Santa.) Jason and I usually get each other a bunch of stuff we don't need, and we can shop for our relatives without having to worry overly much about the budget.

It wasn't always like this.

Our first Christmas after Isaiah was born was hideous. He was an August baby, and I had gone back to work at the beginning of December. I felt like the worst mother on the planet. Jason was doing on-call snow removal at $127.50 every two weeks. He wanted to pick up a few shifts somewhere else, but since we couldn't predict the snow, we couldn't always predict when he'd be available for other work, and that generally doesn't go over well with employers. However, the money he made in the summer from that landscaping job was good enough to make it worth sucking it up in the winter. When you added Jason's income to my $165 unemployment cheque every two weeks, it meant I had to go back to work. On the up side, McDonald's was close to the house, so I didn't have to scrape up money for a bus pass.

We were miserable. We were 19, COMPLETELY broke, and had a new baby we couldn't afford. Formula was too expensive, so I was pumping bottles for him before I left each night for work. We could barely afford diapers, had been to the food bank more than once in the last 4 months, and aside from the McDonald's leftovers at the end of the night, had no real source of protein.

We resented each other, and (this was the worst part) we resented Isaiah. We were barely speaking, and if we could have afforded to split up, we would have. I hated that I had ruined my life, that I had been trapped by pregnancy in a doomed relationship, and that my mother was disappointed in me. I despised that when I was out walking with Isaiah, people stared (I still looked about 13 years old), but it didn't matter, because I couldn't stand leaving the apartment anyway. I hated that Jason and I were spending Christmas apart (not knowing how to fix the tension or figure out the arrangements for Christmas with my newly single mom and his widowed mom, we decided to go to our separate ways for the holidays), because I figured it would probably be our last Christmas together.

We had no money for gifts. None. We had no money for food, rent, cable, phone, or electricity, so Christmas had sunk so far down our list that it didn't even register. We'd each scraped together something so we could buy our moms some crappy gift, but that was it. The only small consolation was that Isaiah was too young to remember how bad this would suck. I tried to keep it from our friends and family how truly, disgustingly AWFUL things were, but it's hard to put on a brave face when you're screaming inside.

Someone figured it out.

On the 20th of December, our doorbell rang. There was no snow that day, so Jason was home. He was in the living room, avoiding me, and I was in the bedroom with the baby, avoiding him.

I answered the door, and there was a box. A giant, big box, and my mom standing behind it. She couldn't possibly have carried the thing in there herself.

"I don't know what it is," she answered when I asked her what was going on, "they just needed a key to get it to your front door. I know who it's from, but I'll never tell you, so don't ask. Merry Christmas!" And off she went (scampered?).

We dragged the box into the apartment and opened it up.

Oh. My. God.

The top layer of the box had a new shirt and sweater for Jason, a new shirt and sweater for me, and a set of sleepers and some outfits for Isaiah. There were baby toys, a package of diapers, and baby wipes. There were new books for both of us (we are HUGE readers- it was like giving an addict some heroin- our eyes kept drifting back to them), and a set of dishtowels. And underneath, there were cans. Cans and cans of BRAND NAME food- not the crappy stuff people donate to the Food Bank. There was a frozen turkey, and boxes of Stove Top stuffing (we have used it religiously since- it will for ever and always be my favourite stuffing). There were fruits, and vegetables, and boxes of juice. There was a carton of milk, and a tin of coffee. There was a thing of eggnog, and a frozen pumpkin pie. And at the very bottom, there was a $50 gift certificate to Safeway. Fifty dollars. I had NEVER spent that much on groceries at once.

We stared at the contents of this box, stunned at the generosity it involved. We had new clothes, which we hadn't been able to buy in a year. Isaiah had a gift to open, even if it wasn't from us, and we have that silver rattle to this day. We had more food that we knew what to do with (even though we had no idea how to cook any of it), and we had the guarantee of MORE groceries in the near future (we intended to save the gift card, but the excitement of shopping overwhelmed us and we went first thing the next morning).

I started to sob. I'm crying now as I write this.

It wasn't just gifts and food. It was enough generosity to take an increasingly heavy burden off our shoulders for a few days so that we could breathe. It was the reassurance that although people wanted us to succeed on our own, that we would never be completely forgotten. It was a reminder that however badly we screwed up, someone still loved us. It was recognition that we were trying as hard as we could, and appreciation for the effort.

It was a giant box of hope.

I looked up to see Jason putting things away in the cupboards (some of them had never actually held anything before), tears rolling silently down his face. He would never have admitted it, but that box meant everything to him too.

We set aside our tension, and bitterness, and anger. We put everything away, and cooked a giant (with some telephone advice from both moms) Christmas dinner. We sat in the living room afterwards, full, and happy, and watched our 4 month old ignore his rattle.

We sent a thank you card, signed by both of us (and chewed by Isaiah), and mom promised to deliver it to the right people. We still don't know who sent the box, but we're grateful. Maybe we would have made it through the holidays anyway, and maybe we would still be together today, but I truly believe that moments like that forge bonds that may never otherwise exist.  We have celebrated 17 Christmases since then, and have added three more children to the circle on the floor around the tree. And that first Christmas is the one we talk about.

Not knowing who was behind it made it even better. When you're that low, and that broken, the last thing you sometimes want to do is look into the eyes of your benefactor, no matter how badly you needed the help. It's a reminder that you aren't measuring up. I know that's how I would have felt.

So this Christmas, help someone. Give something. Give time, or money, or food, or love. Pay off someone's Christmas layaway plan. Shovel the neighbour's walk. Put your paycheque into a Sally Ann kettle. Buy the coffee of the guy behind you in line. Do whatever you can, in whatever way you can. But do it anonymously.

And to the person or people who put together that miracle for us so many years ago, that 3 foot by 3 foot box saved our Christmas.

And it probably saved our family.

Thank you again.

Update To The Previous...

My mom called me today, howling, to tell me she read the last blog ('Why I Am The Way I Am').

She explained (through shrieks of laughter and tears of mirth) that she remembers the entire incident like it was yesterday (having previously forgotten all about it), and it seems, after seeing it written down in black & white, that the 'drug dog' scenario may have been a somewhat silly idea after all.

Ah, the sweet, sweet taste of vindication....

Why I Am The Way I Am

When the big kids were really little and we lived in the condo, we used to have Isaiah's birthday parties outside. The yard was the size of a postage stamp, but it was still bigger than the whole inside of my house smashed together and rolled out flat. Besides, outside gave us adults the opportunity to get really drunk on cheap booze and play rousing games of volleyball with the balloons after my mom and grandparents left.

Anyway, this one birthday party, we're all sitting there, chatting it up, and all of a sudden a GIANT German Shepherd walks in through the gate and sits himself down in the middle of the party and helps himself to a slice of (ridiculously good) birthday cake.

I try not to argue with German Shepherds, ever, so I sat there, quietly fuming, until about 5 minutes later when his owner sauntered over from the bagel place across the street, looked at her dog and the cake, and says,

"Oh- look! He had some cake!"

And walks out the gate with her (much less hungry) dog, not a word of apology spilling from her lips.

My mom was talking to my Grandma (she was awesome, and I miss her to this day, but together, she and mom came up with some WEIRD stuff) about it later, and between the two of them, they decided that it must have been a drug-sniffing dog, sent in by the cops to investigate the party and look for cocaine (Really? You couldn't even credit me with something soft? You had to go straight for the hard stuff?), and when he didn't find any drugs (in the cake???), they left.

Anyone else would have thought that the dog had finished eating his (ill-mannered) owner's bag of recently purchased bagels and had come over for dessert.

When I pointed out that the police don't just send drug sniffing dogs at random into small children's birthday parties, and that there is generally some prior reason for doing it, she refused to back down. Her mind was made up. She wondered about my neighbours.

This is why I'm twitchy.

Hookers and Hit & Runs

A hooker once hit my car.

No joke.

I'm sure she was a very nice lady, but she worked some pretty odd shifts and had some impulse control problems. This does not make for a cautious, defensive driver.

Right after Liz was born, when we were living in our 'slightly less skanky than the downstairs one' upstairs apartment (see my post 'On Poverty'), we figured we were in an ok area. It wasn't GREAT- it was one of the small apartments by the old Ernest Manning High School normally rented by teenagers with babies (Huh. Go figger.), but we didn't think the neighborhood was all THAT bad.

Until one night, the phone rang at about 2 a.m.

When I answered it, a woman identified herself as Constable Whasserpickle, and told me my car had been involved in a hit and run. Because we have friends and family with some seriously warped senses of humor, I politely told her to go back to her beer & hung up the phone.

Ring, ring.

Now I was irritated. I picked up the phone, and in my very best 'I'm bigger than you and I have a stick' voice, told her that if she woke up either of our kids with her screwing around, she could come up here and put them back to sleep herself. At which point she (in her best 'I'm bigger than you and I have a stick AND a gun' voice) informed me that no, she really WAS Constable Whasserpickle, and my car really HAD been involved in a hit and run.

"That's impossible," I told her, "it's outside."

"Yeah." she said. "Yours was the 'hit' part."

Come ON!!! Why couldn't we just catch a break??? That Dodge Aries had cost us at LEAST $20 to buy from my aunt (Ok- she charged us $1- I'm a compulsive liar), and was the first car we'd owned together. And now you're telling me it was destroyed in full view of my front door???

I told Jason what had happened, and while he stood staring out the window, I dressed quickly and ran downstairs.

Constable Whasserpickle met me at the front door and walked me over to my car, which, to my INTENSE relief, had a broken taillight, and no other perceptible damage (good deal, too- we could only afford PL & PD). The mint condition classic Trans-Am behind me, however, which had been pushed into my car by the truck that had done all the damage, had fared much less well. It was still a Trans-Am. It was just....... shorter.

The truck that had inflicted all the pain on our poor, defenseless vehicles was sitting all catterwonky in the middle of the intersection down the street, with the paddywagon pulled up beside it.

I turned to my neighbor, the owner of the Trans-Am, to tell him how sorry I was about his car, when I noticed he was laughing.

Like HOWLING.

Like he was leaning on his hood and tears were rolling down his cheeks.
And that's when I noticed the police officer chuckling. And then I saw the OTHER neighbor, handcuffed and on the ground, swearing like a drunken sailor with Tourette’s.

Turns out, one of the guys who lived in the apartment building next door to us had rented some companionship for the evening. It seems that at the end of the night, he realized he had no money to pay the tab (remember- he lived in our neighborhood. I'm surprised she didn't ask for cash up front. Or at least do a credit check), and she decided to take his truck as.... collateral. She hit him over the head with a bottle of booze (which I can only assume was a 1787 Chateau Lafitte or a 1951 Grange Hermitage), grabbed the keys out of his pants’ pocket (which were apparently not on his person where they should have been), and took off out the door, kicking him in the nether regions as she went past.

Luckily, the woman's thought processes were so slowed by the evening’s consumption of fine wine, rare cheeses and innocent fun that our saintly neighbor had enough time to regain consciousness, dress himself, and (here's the best part) CALL 911, before she made it to the end of the block (ricocheting off other vehicles like the little metal ball in a pinball machine).

At this point she abandoned the effort in the middle of the intersection (perhaps she hadn’t taken driver’s ed classes at AMA), switched off the truck, crawled into the back, and fell asleep. When the cops got there, good neighbor was standing out front, angrier than hell at this violation of his civic right and personal property, and she was having a nice nap on a pile of painter's tarps in the bed of the truck.

Never let anyone tell you that you live in a bad neighborhood.

Make them prove it.

It Can't Just Be Easy

The other day while I was at Superstore loading up on groceries, I put the final bag into the van, slammed the hatch and noticed someone had stolen the 2012 registration sticker off my license plate. Seriously? Isn't that a lot of work? I don't know about any of you, but that struck me as FAR too much work to be worth it. I am pretty sure those suckers, with glue adapted for Alberta weather, don't peel off all that easily.

I drove home, fuming, and told Jason about it as we unloaded the groceries.

"Well," he said, with an odd look on his face, "are you sure you remembered to put the stickers ON the cars when you re-registered them in November?"

When I re-registered them???

Shit.

So the next day, as I bundled and loaded my kids up to drive to the Registries Office by our place, desperately praying I wasn't followed closely enough by a cop who might NOTICE that my van's plates had expired 9 days previously, I went to grab the information out of our other car so I could take care of them both at the same time.

This is where it got difficult.

For the life of me, I could not find the pink insurance slip for our Saturn. It wasn't in any of the places I expected it to be (namely, the glove box, the glove box, or possibly, down the back of the glove box), and it wasn't anywhere on the floor. After 20 fruitless minutes, I called Jason at work to see if he had any idea where it was, and in a little bit of a startled voice, he says,

"Huh. It's in my wallet. I have it right here. I wonder why??? But don't worry about it, because I seem to remember that last year you couldn't register that car anyway, because the registration is in my name."

Oh, yeah. Now that he mentioned it, I remembered that, too. At least it took the sting out of the fact that, for no good reason, he was carrying the insurance slip around with him. I locked the van doors, and moved the car into our parking spot, where at least it wouldn't (because this is the way our luck runs) get hit on the street in the next 6 hours and I would get a zillion dollar ticket for having an unregistered vehicle out there, and my insurance company wouldn't cover the damage.

After finally getting to the mall up the hill from us (having promised my younger children a trip to McDonald's, as neither of them were overly excited about the opportunity to stand in line for 3 days with nothing to do), I realized that the gas light was on in the van. No big deal- I would register the van, get gas, get McDonald's for the little kids, and still be back home in time to appreciate part of my day.

I reached into the glove box, grabbed my little folder (containing all the pertinent info, cause that's how you're SUPPOSED to do it) out of the van, un-car-seated the kids, and walked in. Score- there WAS no line up! The time I would be wasting getting gas had been magically redeemed to me! How often does THAT happen?

I stripped the kids out of their winter coats to their 'the heat in a public building is up far too high because winter is starting' layer, and walked up to give the lady my registration and pink slip (explaining sheepishly that I had forgotten all about it). As I pulled my driver's license out of my wallet for her, I realized I had no bank card.

We do everything in cash, and don't use credit cards. Years ago, we figured out how much we were spending on bank fees with both of us constantly going to the bank machine, and cut up one of our bank cards and now existed with just the single one. It halved our service charges, but created many an irritating surprise. Like now. I was going to have to come back.

"We also take cheques, Visa or MasterCard!" chirped the clerk.

Awesome- I knew I had a check left in the car from the last time Liz had to sell something and I wrote a check to cover it (because, as we only use one bank card and are inherently lazy, Jason and I had spent most of the cash she had collected for her poinsettia sales rather than go to a bank machine. Thanks for nothing, Gail Vaz-Oxlade.)

I bundled the little kids back up into their winter coats and ran to the van- yep- there it was- one check, slightly wrinkled, with barely a coffee stain to be seen. I smoothed it out, grabbed the little kids & ran back in, only to see the clerk with a sympathetic expression on her face.

"I can't do it." she said. "The only name on your insurance card is your husband's. It needs to show both your names. I can only re-register the vehicle to the person on the insurance."

"Seriously?" I asked, "Ok- can he come in and register it when he comes in to do his car later?"

"Nope!" she crowed gleefully, "The van is registered under your name, so it can only be you that does it! You'll have to call your insurance company and get them to fax a copy of a pink slip with both your names on it before we can help you!"

I sat the kids down on chairs to wait while I called our insurance company, gave Eva my keys, and handed Squid a piece of pocket gum (You know the stuff that's been in your pocket since probably last winter and is hard and crunchy and you have to chew it for about 10 minutes before it's even really gum??? That's pocket gum. Since it takes them longer to chew it, it takes them longer to lose interest and swallow it. That's why I gave it to him. Not because I didn't want to go back out to the van. That would be silly.)

I got my insurance agent on the phone, who, it having been at least 6 months since last I spoke to them, was not the same guy I had talked to last time, and had no idea who I was and had to look me up in a verrrrrrrry sloooooooow computer system, and proceeded to announce that although I was listed as the primary driver on one of the vehicles, and a secondary driver on the other, my name had been dropped from the actual ownership of the policy for no damn good reason. They could fix it, sure. But it was his lunchtime, and until he could get ahold of the correct people (who, it would appear, were ALSO at lunch), he couldn't do anything about it. Could he fax or email the right slips to me in, oh, say, an hour???

Even the registries clerk felt bad. And this is a person TRAINED to make your life more difficult at every turn.

This trip was a lost cause. It was easier anyway, cause I really DIDN'T want to write a cheque for 84 bucks. I was going to keep my composure, and accept it for what it was. I re-re-RE-bundled the kids up and went back out to the van, only to realize when I turned it on that the gas light was still lit, and I probably wasn't going to make it home on what few fumes I had left in the tank.

I ripped apart the ashtray and glove box, the back seat where my eldest children sit, and the pockets in the door and came up with $8.32. Good enough. It would get me home and I wouldn't have to stop for gas again till my NEXT trip to the registries place that night. I ran into the gas station to give the clerk my pocket change, and went out to the van (Quick note- $8.32 is actually a pretty decent amount of gas. WELL over an eighth of a tank.)

I pulled away from the gas station, grateful to just be going home. I was proud of the way I had handled it. I hadn't lost my cool, divorced my husband, beaten my children, screamed at the registries clerk, or shown up at a pizza place with a week-old pizza (expressly kept for that purpose) only to deposit in on the counter and announce that if they weren't even going to TRY to get my order right or fix the problem when I called, they could have the damn thing back (we don't order from there anymore). I was like a superhero. My own, special brand of superhero. Moms everywhere should admire me!

Right then, Squid's quivery, teary voice piped up from the middle seat.

"Are we still getting McDonald's???"

Never mind.

Nobody Lives Here.

Nobody lives here.

No one else.

Just me, and NotMe.

And NotMe is pissing me off.

When I woke up this morning, NotMe had drunk all the apple juice, and left the barest smidgen of it in the bottom of the carton. NotMe does this all the time, and I'm getting tired of it. I don't think it's too much to ask that when I go to get sippy cups of juice for Eva and the dayhome kids in the morning, that NotMe either leave an appreciable amount of juice, or grab a new carton out of the pantry and put it in the fridge. It's not as though we don't stock 400 litres of the stuff. It would just be nice to reach into the fridge and have one available so I don't have to serve warm juice. That's all.

NotMe toasts bagels in the morning and butters them and leaves them on the counter before she goes to school, wasting not only a bagel, but butter, and my last ounce of patience. After a hearty breakfast of warm apple juice, I am not super jazzed by the idea of eating NotMe's cold, rubbery bagel, just so it doesn't have to be tossed in the trash. I usually stick it in a baggie and leave it out so that NotMe can eat it in lieu of dinner, but NotMe typically throws it away and I forget about it anyway. NotMe is costing me a fortune in baked goods. Just saying.

NotMe's favorite prank is to crank the heat up from 19 to 35. No joke. The tab on the thermostat actually gets pushed all the way to the digits 3 & 5. NotMe did this once in the dead of winter when we left the house to go to a friend's for the evening, and when we got back, the condensation from the melting snow had frozen the screen door shut. I didn't see it happen, but apparently, while I was getting Squid out of his car seat, NotMe accidentally shoved his hand through the screen on the door trying to force it open. NotMe is making my paint melt. No biggie.

NotMe eats cereal out of mixing bowls, and leaves an inch of milk in the bottom of them to go rotten over the course of the day so they smell when I go to load them in the dishwasher. Come to think of it, NotMe doesn't pull his own weight with the dishwasher loading, either. NotMe accidentally punched an elbow sized hole in the wall while having an innocent conversation with his sister. That was 2 years after NotMe made her fall of the bed and she needed her nose put back together with surgical glue. NotMe lost her iPod Touch, left the tv on downstairs AGAIN, and used all my black mascara. NotMe just spilled my pop.

Last night, NotMe took it to a whole new level.

We live in a world where cards are king. I use a debit card to grocery shop and buy gas, and I use a Starbuck's card for my coffee. When my best friend's kids sell chocolate for fundraisers, I email them the money. And I pay all my bills online. I hate going to the bank machine 400 times a day. So every week, I figure out how much cash I need, and grab it from the bank. Jason gets $20 in case he has to pay cash for parking, and I set aside whatever I need for the kids.

And every single week, NotMe screws me. NotMe grabs my wallet (which is apparently public property) out of my purse, takes all the cash, and spends it on Slurpees, Tim Horton's, and texas donuts. And when I go in there to grab the $3.50 I need for pizza day at school, it's missing. This invariably happens at midnight... so that I am left driving to 7-11 in my pyjamas... so that I can take $20 out of a bank machine... so that I can then use it to buy gum... so that I can give a child $2.80 in cash for his new science journal.

It happened last night with my last toonie. I needed it for Liz's bus fare so so she could go to the tour of her new high school in the morning. As much as I wanted to make her walk, I knew it wasn't her fault. NotMe was behind it.

I lost it.

I was in amazing form. I started out speaking calmly, until I found out that it wasn't Squid, Liz, Isaiah, or Jason who had taken the cash from my purse, but that irritating little thorn in my side, NotMe.

Come on! Really? Enough already! Is NotMe trying to KILL me??? I do more extra legwork because of NotMe's laziness! I had just gotten back from the store, JASON had just gotten back from the store, and now NotMe had spent my last damn toonie and I had to go OUT again?

I raged. I cried. I yelled and I screamed. And NotMe (brave bugger that he is) stood there and took all the blame. I threatened to cancel Liz's sailing trip, and NotMe didn't waver. I promised Isaiah would never see the (street) light of day again, but NotMe held true in her steadfastness, and refused to let the other kids take the blame. I resorted to guilt tripping and bemoaning my fate, and NotMe stood there, firm in his resolve, and would not go down without a fight.

I gave in.

I pulled apart my couch and the ashtray in my van, and managed to find enough assorted nickles, dimes, and pennies for Liz to put together the required bus fare. I grabbed a Smirnoff Ice out of the fridge (huh- NotMe's been drinking them again), and sat down on the couch. I flipped on the TV, started watching a PVR of Judge Judy (I have to watch them quickly or NotMe deletes them in to make room for 723,654 recordings of 'The Office'), and quietly gave myself up to fate.

NotMe had me. There was nothing I could do to change her. Maybe the best thing was simply to roll over and surrender to the chaos. But someday, it was going to get to me. Eventually, NotMe was going to drive me out of the last shredded remains of my sanity. And when that happened, and the nice doctors sent mommy to a quiet place where she could rest and relax and get in some serious crayon time, who would run the house and take care of the kids and buy the groceries and rake up the pinecones and sort the toys and remember to take out the recycling?

That's right.

Not me.