Preludes And Nocturnes

So it is 6:14pm here and I just finished tidying up the kitchen with Jim when we turned to each other and discussed whether or not to go out to the park tonight.

Jim had a meeting this morning until after lunch, I took the car to get an tune-up and walked over to my gym while that was getting done this afternoon - but we were aware that Malcolm hasn’t gotten out today (aside from the two of us doing some gardening in the yard this morning for about two hours before lunch).

But I have this whole idea about “getting out” every day.  We have a smaller house, we have a tiny yard, and I try to ensure that Malcolm gets out every day.  If it isn’t a daycare day, we go to the park, the beach, a hike, a walk up from out house on the trail, drop-in gym, friends, or the fruit stand each day for 1-3 hours depending.  Since Jim is home now, we are averaging 4-5 picnic lunches or dinners a week at the park.  We keep it simple - just throw together a cheese sammich/ chicken salad/ egg salad/ fruit/ whatever … and go.  The park we go to has a peanut pool, swings, jungle gym, and lots of grass to run run run!

I just think that people like to get out.  And that Malcolm sleeps better.  But I also realized tonight that it had gotten a little out of hand.  In the winter we didn’t get out every day - but when it is sunny I feel like we’re *supposed to* get out there every single day. Since he turned 2 I feel like he has OTT energy, I think this has an impact on it all.

So tonight Jim suggested to me that probably most people did not go outside their home/yard every day.  And that Malcolm would probably be okay if he didn’t go to the park tonight (which would be great, I’m kinda wiped out from this past week).  So yes - this all boils down to a sudden awareness that I had made an unspoken rule that, deep down, I don’t know is useful or what I actually believe!

And so, my questions:

Do you and your family get out every day?

Does it differ with the season?

Does it differ with age of kid (if applicable)?

Okay, so you all know I work at the uni and it is really stressful with the contract by contract nature of it all.  I apply each term to see what they have for me, and this can range from 33% to 133% workload.  Last year they offered me 2+1 for Sept-April and that comes in at 50% (3 classes = full time).  By the time December rolled around they had two more classes for me at the last minute so Jan-April ended up full time. Yay!

This summer I got 2 classes (s’okay  - better than my friend who got ONE) and now I’m looking at the coming year.

I applied and was told in june I’d get 2+1 again this year.  No contract showed up (all sorts of reasons why it was held up) so I jumped on the chance to apply for a part-time at the college.  I interviewed and got a 50% posting for September with the college a few weeks ago.  That same day I found out about the college the uni offered me a 3rd class for Sept.

So now I’ve got 100% and 50% for Sept-Dec.  Jan-April is still just at 33%.

The college posting is temp part-time.  But hey, I’m in there!

Sept is going to suck, but Jim will be home Sept-Dec because I can’t handle him away any more.  I cannot survive another term with him gone Mon morning through Thurs night.  It is too much.  And they didn’t offer him anything very woohoo this term, so we decided as a family that with what it would cost for travel, his rental in the other city, and stress on us - this posting his uni offered was just not enough.  So he will be Mr. Mom for the term and help support me with the 1.5 job.

So the posting I got with the college is in Communications.

Last week I see that ENGL has a posting up for Sept-April of 2+1.

I’m thinking of applying for it.  <– crazy part.

Okay okay - are you still here?  See, I want to teach in the ENGL department.  All three classes are the same, AND all three are the class I’m teaching right now this summer.

If I got it, I’d be teaching seven classes this term.  And two in Jan.

er… plus a lab.

But that is all.

*sigh*

I’m seeing a therapist to help with some anxiety that went off the charts when Malcolm got sick - and that is not doing much better the past week as I had a very short pregnancy that did not stick.  Really really short, but long enough to really fuck up my hormones.  It was like super-charged PMS carrying a baseball bat.

So, she is a good therapist and I like her.  We’ve been talking about trying to hang out a bit more in the now.  It is strange, though, as she’s trying to address my multi-tasking when I think my multi-tasking is all that is keeping me afloat.  This led to her making some comments about my quest for perfection (I guess my reply that perfectionists are much more on-the-ball than I am was not proof that I’m not a perfectionist) and my belief that if “I just work a bit harder things would all be taken care of.”  See, I am SO not a perfectionist as I just let myself end a sentence with a preposition.  Nyah.

Yeah, so, um balance.  She talks a whole lot about balance.  And I find this tough right now.  Jim has been working all summer in Kamloops so he’s gone Monday morning through to Thursday night.  I have been working 2-3 days a week as well.  Malcolm is in 2 days of daycare a week. I think this is pretty tough, and I find that “me time” or “self care” kinda flies out the window when the going gets rough.  My task these past few weeks has been to try to reassess my priorities to find better balance.

I (of course) think that if I just work on not wasting so much time on stupid stuff then I could keep doing everything that needs doing AND have more self-care time.  But I’m just not sure how to get rid of the time wasting stuff.  And I’m not sure that it is wasting time.  Surfing the web seems stupid after the fact - but when Jim is gone (especially) I need my online connections to keep me sane.  Malcolm is going to bed later now (more in the 9pm range) so I maybe get 2hrs to prep lunches/bags for the next day, do some school prep and marking, Facebook, Forums, email, and then a bit of TV.

But I really don’t like mommy  martyrdom.  I rail against it.  “Oh, I can only get 3hrs of sleep a night because I’m a mom.” or “Oh, I can only eat three peas a day because I’m a mom.”  or whatever.  I mean, I do GET IT.  Being a parent is OTT hard and I feel mighty sorry for myself a whole lot of the time.  Especially when Jim is away.  But I’m not sure I was that great at self care before I was a mom either.

Anyhoo, I’m working on doing more self-care when Malcolm is awake.  I can’t prep when he is awake because it just doesn’t work.  I do most of my house tasks with him.. but since I’m trying to shift priorities, I’ll aim for more ME things with him.  This meant tonight we did yoga together.

No, not quite the zen event it can be when done on my own.. but it was a  real trip regardless.  And then we got him ready for bed and he read stories to his trains in bed while I had my bath. I’ll call this a win.

Sorry guys.  I want to blog.  I miss you all  - I miss bloggig and the whole “me and you” of blogging.

Things are just fine. Malcolm is fine.  Jim and I have taken a while to recover -but we’re good. Thanks so much for your comments on the last post.  It was horrible, and it was really kind of you all to send love. It was good to come back and read what you all said.

So I thought I’d start off a new post and share my two “dear god I’m a retard” moments of the past month.  Tonight I stood in the front yard spending the 40 minutes it takes to water my front yard flowers (bunch of pots… not bunch off knobs), my two lilacs, my wizzled poppy, my front perennial bed.  Not a crazy amount to water, but the water pressure out front is horrid.  I end up setting up the sprayer and then going to the backyard to fill the watering can since the pressure is good back there.  So then I end up not watering the front because it takes so long.  Things are pretty hot here these days - stuff is wilting (frying).  By the time I get M to bed I don’t want to go spend the time (and worry he’s away, crying, and I’m not hearing).  And I don’t feel good doing it when he’s up b/c it is too long for him to hang in the living room.  Obviously too long for him out front with me as he gets bored and wants to run in traffic.

Tonight I found out I had the nozzle turned down to one notch above “off”.  No, it didn’t actually say off - but the graphic was backwards to me.  I THOUGHT I had fiddled about with that nozzle way back when - obviously not.  Turned it up and hell yeah, I’ll get the watering done in 90 seconds from now on.

Long term win, short term “DOH!”

Item number two?

For over two years I’ve been watering an indoor plant that is, in fact, fake.

It was a gift.

Oh yeah, I’m a rock star of gardening.

As some of you know, this morning Malcolm had what they think was a febrile seizure. Today started fine.  At 11am we dropped him off at my mom’s house so Jim and I could grab groceries.

I called her at noon and she said he had just stopped playing and climbed up on the couch with his blanket.  She said he was very hot to the touch.

So we went over and picked him up.  He was very hot so mom had a facecloth, and we put him in the car to head home and get him some advil/cool bath/etc.

About 3 minutes from my mom’s house he dropped his train from his carseat, stopped talking to us (he chatters non-stop these days) and started listing and just staring out the window.

Jim couldn’t get his attention - so I told him to keep trying (I am the driver) and I passed everyone and drove directly to the emergency room.  We made every light, I got us there in about two or three minutes, and even faster as going up the hill M started to vomit and choke.

At emergency I went to grab M and Jim ran in to get some help.  Malcolm’s eyes were rolled back and he was white and limp.  All I could think was to have him facing down so his lungs would clear and to run - I left my car running with the door open outside emergency.  We were calling for help as we came through the doors and they took him from me.  I didn’t know if he was breathing, if he was dead - I can’t explain it, but everything was just buzzing in my ears.

He wasn’t breathing well, his lungs are cloudy, and they took him and gave him oxygen and - well, I don’t know what else they did.  In all, he started to be responsive at a very basic level over the next hour or so.  They took blood, urine, and lung x-rays.

They think it is his ear - infected - that caused the fever. And the fever caused the seizure.  And, in all, the seizures are not harmful.  Aside from my mental state, right now.

We were at the hopsital for four hours and by then he was sitting up with a popscicle and his Thomas on DVD (Jim and my mom went to the house to put the milk in the fridge and grab us some clothes as both M and I were kinda puked on).

Since being home Malcolm slept for 3.5hrs and now is playing with Jim (and his trains).  In all, I think I’ll end up sleeping in M’s room tonight.  We took turns during his nap going up and standing over him while he slept.

Yeah.  Today was not what I expected.

Well, I’ve finally done one of these.  It was lots of fun, and I think I only managed to clean my kitchen tonight because I knew it would make a nice final shot…  Please note, this is usually supposed to be 12 pictures taken on the 12th of the month.  I have 20 pictures here.  Why? Because I’ve never bothered to try to do this before (well, never succeeded from morning til night) so I was just so damned impressed I included more pictures.  Laurie and Meg and Helen actually do 12 pictures like they’re supposed to.

And so we start.
The new blackout curtains are working in Malcolm’s room and I managed to wake up on my own at 7:30.  How lovely!!  So downstairs to make some coffee.

And I have some help with all of this.

Malcolm is still asleep so I can get a bit of work done for class today.

Oh, 8:30 and he is up!

Malcolm plays while I get both of our breakfasts ready.

And we’re both having some good food!

9:30 and we are pushing the boundaries of being late, so into the car and this shot is, I believe, M saying “no maaam” because we didn’t stop to play in the backyard.

Bye house!

I drop Malcolm at daycare and I arrive at the uni by 10:30.

You know, I cleaned my office later that afternoon - I couldn’t have taken a second shot?

Noon. Head out from my office and teach my class - today we worked on oral presentations, effetive strategies for starting research, and a few icebreakers (it is only the second class - they need to get to know each other). But, I took this after they left as it was easier than explaining the whole photo journal of my day.

Back to my office at 2:30 and I’m starved!

3:30 Head out from the uni after doing a few email and giving my office a quick purge.  Here’s the view for most of my 35 minute drive to/from work.

I have an appointment in town, pick up Malcolm at 4:30, and head over to mom and dad’s for dinner.  Malcolm is pointing out grandma’s boo boo on her foot.

We then head home around 6:30. Malcolm plays in the backyard as I get the garbage and recycling out for the next morning.

We both water the plants in the front and back yards.

Come inside and it is 7:30 so time to watch a little PVR’d In the Night Garden and get M into bed by 8:30 after a bath and a book.

9pm and I’ve got the kitchen tidied and the bigger toys put away.  Time to check work email one last time, toodle about online, and then try to get to bed with enought time to read a little something!

Thanks for looking at my day!

I was thinking about how these random things can make me sooooo happy.  And then I was thinking about how they don’t always relate to their cost.  So my challenge to you all is to list your top five high-end happy-makers and top five ‘on the cheap’ happy makers.

Please note I didn’t list my kid or my husband or my family because this list is more.. materialistic-based than all that.  I mean, obviously they all could make up the whole list. But I was going for something different with this.

If you are a parent and want to list your kids in any way - you have to say something specific. You can’t just list five kids (on a side note, are the kids the high-end pricey stuff or the cheap? I guess it depends on which direction you look at them from). So kids can only be ONE entry in the whole list of ten.

High End
*New ipod touch. ZOMG I love it so.
*Our trips to Vancouver.  It keeps us feeling like we’re tapped into a bigger life than this smaller city can offer.  I am so glad we make this a priority a couple times each year.
*My car.  And as an extension - Deciding to drive to work this summer so I can sing and decompress there/back rather than take the bus and save that $ each week
*PVR - we can now put M to bed and not worry that we’re missing the first ten minutes of Amazing Race or whatever we’re following.
*My yard.  The new planters are teeny but I love them. They were more than I wanted to spend, but it is our house and we can move them around and have them forever.  They look really nice and were MUCH less than the blocks to make the bigger bed.

Cheapy Cheap Cheap
*my bird feeder. I love seeing fat little birds out there every day having a bird party.
*free apps.  I sat outside with M for an hour today as he played dumptruck.  Sat in my nice patio chair, listened with one ear bud to my glee music, and played solitaire.
*my new carrot cake recipe.  I think I’ve said, out loud, that I love it more than one should love a cake about fourteen times today.
*My bath pillow.  Why didn’t I have one of these forever?  In fact, I have to go take a bath once I’m done this list.
*My local library.  I have just requested about 20 CDs from them.  This past winter I have read soooo many books I thought I would just buy, but they had them in there.  I love reading, but I love reading without guilt (and space issues of storing books afterward) even better.

It isn’t a vent because I don’t have enough energy to vent. Oh no, instead this is a pity party. I will be willing to host it, but given how overloaded I feel right now, everyone must bring something.

Anyone else want to join me?

I did some retail therapy last night and bought two lilac bushes and some annuals for my front yard.  I’m very pleased with my little garden out front and the self-starters, so I just need some pansies and alyssum to fill in a couple spots.

I will use the lilacs as an informal border between us and the next yard, and I hope to pick up maybe two more shrubs this year. I figure we’ll add a piece or two each coming summer until it is filled in as much as I want.

I love small front yards with lots of texture, colour, and levels.

Here is what I aspire to:

And here is where I’m at (sigh):

Our backgard:

So we’ve actually spent a crazy amount of time just getting to this stage.  We were working from scratch - no grass, nothing. Just weeds and hard hard dirt.  We got everything cleaned up, got the front looking pretty good with mulch, a shrub by the cement steps to help hold the hill a little, the start of the garden, and then I added lots of containers last summer with bright annuals to brighten it all up.  My little garden is full of tulips right now and my perennials are coming in wonderfully (I got them all from my grandma last year, then they were run over by someone who crashed into our porch.. so anything that comes up is a treat).

Backyard we did the rock, the lawn, and the new fence.

I think I want to push the rock back to just be beside the house and get a bit more lawn this summer since it is play space now.  And I am thinking of running three long containers along the fence for some veggies.  Again, baby steps…

What are your gardens like? What do you want to do?  Any suggestions for me?  We’re such a hot climate that I can’t get anything too lush in the front yard, but I’ll do my best.

I’m trying to very quickly put together my second term reading list for this summer.  It is a narratives course and I can have any variety of the following:

anecdotes

autobiography

biography

diary

film

history

myth

narrative poems

song

novels

I *must* have at least three of the above.  So far I’m throwing around Dr. Horrible, Gilgamesh (a verse narrative), myth, song, Ysabel by Guy Gavriel Kay, Lord of the Rings.

The secret is to pick things that are good to teach, that I know, and that will work well together.  I love having a theme - I was wondering about either doing “Heroes” or “Love”.  The love one could be an examination of different kinds of love - love between couples, between friends (gilgamesh, LoTR).  I also need it to work well when my higher-ups look at my book list.

Any ideas?  Any songs to throw in the mix?