Category Archives: My failing sanity

A Bad Case of the Januarys

Posted on by

The house is quiet. It feels strange to have a quiet house. The boys are both at school this morning, and yesterday I felt quite moony about it – the end of holidays, back to the routine of drop-offs and pick-ups and layering on piles of winter clothing, back to being chilled all day long from the constant comings and goings. January. Yesterday snow fell all day long and it was difficult to tell where the snowy ground stopped and the sad grey sky started. I think I’ll paraphrase the movie Office Space and say that I have a bad case of the Januarys.

Hoo boy, I’m gloomy. First of all I was gloomy because it was the end of holidays and the start of school. Now I’m gloomy because Jake cried when I dropped him off. All morning he kept saying, in that button-pushing voice, “Moooommmm, I’m going to miiisssss you. Mooooommmm, I’m going to be sad when you leave. Mooooommmm, I don’t want to go to school.” At first I responded with that bright, cheery voice used by mothers everywhere, that I would miss him too but we would each have a GREAT morning and he would see his FRIENDS and have FUN. After several of those choruses, my bright and cheery voice evaporated in a cloud of impatience. Later, I watched him file with his classmates down the hall to his classroom, wiping away tears the whole way. I should have felt sympathetic, but I confess I felt frustrated, and somewhat guilty. Like instead of dropping him at his happy little pre-kindergarten with his teacher who sings constantly and tells everyone that they are special just the way they are, I was actually dropping him into a Victorian orphanage where they will force him to eat lumpy burned porridge and beat him for fidgeting.

There’s just no pleasing me, is there? I’m sad because the kids are going back to school and then I’m sad because they’re not thrilled to be going back to school. Well, that’s not quite true – Mark was fairly ecstatic to be back. I worried a little because he has a new teacher, but he seems to have accepted the change with zero adjustment time. “I liked Miss T.,” he said, “But Mrs. T-S will be nice too.” Huh. His relationship with change resembles his father’s. I guess Jake – and his small aptitude for accepting change – is more like me. Jake and I? We are sad when things change, we are sad when people leave, we are sad when our routine is disrupted, but eventually we make peace with it and get on with our lives.

So hopefully there will be no more tears at drop-off. Otherwise, I fear I’m going to have to use my you-don’t-know-how-lucky-you-are voice, and start telling him about Victorian orphanages and the like. And no good can come of that.

Jingle Bell Rock

Posted on by

With the exception of people who do not celebrate Christmas, I probably have the lowest Christmas stress level in the city. My shopping has been finished for over a month, my “holiday baking” consists of making and freezing dough when I feel like it and then thawing and baking said dough into cookies when I have time, and, if it wasn’t already abundantly obvious to readers of this blog, I am not exactly Martha Stewart when it comes to decorating so I don’t get worked up about it. My in-laws do not like to travel at Christmas so I don’t have company to worry about. I don’t host any family meals, which may or may not be a reflection of my cooking ability. My blood pressure stays nice and low during the Christmas season.

My mother is like that too – except she always hosts meals and when I was a kid we always had a seasonal houseful of company – Christmassy things never seemed to bother her. Unexpected visitors for dinner? Last minute houseguests? No problem. A few years ago her oven broke, on Christmas Eve, and she calmly made all her meals, including a chocolate Yule log, with the help of the microwave, barbeque, and a George Foreman grill. Gin may have aided the situation.

So it’s a bit strange to me when people go crazy around Christmas. There’s a certain, unhinged look to people who ARE GOING TO HAVE THE BEST CHRISTMAS EVER, DAMMIT. Nowhere are those peoples more en evidence than in shopping centres a mere nine days before Christmas.

I was in Superstore today. I know what you’re going to say: a new tap, then a Superstore visit, all in the same week? What’s next, organizing the drawer I keep rubber bands and Saran wrap in? Living the dream, baby, living the dream.

But Superstore shoppers: wild-eyed people wielding those gigantic carts through the aisles, bumping into things and snapping at people, grinding their teeth into nubs over a woman leaving her cart to sprint with her obviously potty-training toddler to the washroom. It was somewhat disconcerting, so I took a cue from Buddy the Elf and decided to sing loudly to spread Christmas cheer. Well, maybe not consciously decided. I didn’t realize I was actually singing audibly – along to Jingle Bell Rock, of all songs – until an elderly man with a cart containing no less than eight boxes of All-Bran Buds and as many containers of Metamucil smiled at me and said, “It’s nice to see the Christmas spirit”.

I was embarrassed, of course, as anyone with a marginal singing voice still croaky from a recent cold would be. But, you know, I felt pretty good, and as I pushed my cart in the slushy, packed, road-rage-y parking lot, I hummed Silver Bells. Because I’d rather look crazy-happy than crazy-I-AM-GOING-TO-BAKE-A-FRUITCAKE-AND-YOU-WILL-LOVE-IT.

At least we’re not in Edmonton! Hardy har.

Posted on by

That’s what we Calgarians tend to say to assuage feelings of depression due to weather-related issues. There was actually some truth to that this weekend, however, since Edmonton reached a low ambient temperature of minus 46, which is really fracking cold. It was pretty fracking cold here, around the minus 30 mark. But at least we’re not in Edmonton!

The vicious cold and my weird viral cold kept me indoors all weekend. I don’t think I even stepped foot outside. It was a red-letter weekend nonetheless. Let me recap.

1) I watched the movie Funny People. This in itself is notable as it was made in 2009. Normally I see movies years after they have been released, and when I try to discuss the movie with anyone, the response is usually, “You just saw that now?” Funny People is a really good movie, very interesting, and not at all what I expected. I mean, Adam Sandler is in it so there are many jokes of a flatulent, masturbation, and penis/testicle-related nature. In spite of that, it is quite intelligent and intriguing. Also, there is a scene with Eminem, who plays himself, which is quite hysterical.

2) My husband wrapped the Christmas gifts! This was, to put it in terms of a smarmy Christmas special, the best gift ever. I am terrible at wrapping gifts. This is probably not unrelated to my complete inability to ice cakes, create gingerbread houses, and sew buttons on clothing without ripping a hole in said clothing in an area far removed from where the button actually needs to be. Normally, when I wrap gifts, I cut the paper incorrectly, and end up with a slice of the actual gift showing or, alternately, I have so much excess paper that it all bunches up in a very un-aesthetic fashion. Grossly, I often find strands of my own hair taped to the package, which I take to mean the stress from gift-wrapping causes my hair to fall out and, because of my need to use an excessive amount of tape, become attached to the gift. Just a little piece of me in every gift! Happily, my husband wrapped all the presents (except the ones for him, of course) and the kids have been happily occupied by staring at them, piling them up, counting them, and talking about them.

3) My husband went out and bought, and then installed, a new tap for the kitchen. This may not seem like an interesting or note-worthy thing to you, but if you were a bon-bon eating housewife like myself who spends half her waking hours in the kitchen (but not, fortunately, barefoot or pregnant) and for three weeks you had been dealing with a tap that sends out either a small trickle of water or no water at all, you would be happy too. For three weeks as we waited for replacement parts, I tried to think yogic thoughts – many people don’t even have running water, I should be happy for this small trickle – but it was killing me softly. With its trickle song. However, several replacement parts and futile efforts to fix the tap later, my dear dear husband went out and bought a new tap. First gift wrapping! Then a new tap! He’s also a great lover!

So that was my weekend. How was yours?

GROSS

Posted on by

When I got home early this morning, Mark met me at the door to inform me that he was “a little bit sick”. He certainly didn’t look sick, his colour was good, he ate a good breakfast, but my husband did mention that both boys woke up coughing. I thought about a reader comment about coughing and RSV and I thought I would keep them home for the day. Then they didn’t cough even once the whole day, which was fine. I took it as a mental health day. But after lunch Jake started acting strange. He didn’t want to eat much and was rubbing his head a lot. I started to worry. No fever. Still no eating. He was clingy and wanted to be hugged and held a lot. I started self-medicating. Don’t worry – I wasn’t stumbling around drunk or anything. I mean I ate a couple of chocolate chip cookies with leftover Halloween candy chasers. I was starting to feel a bit stressed.

Now, for the sake of readers who are not parents, or who may wish to become parents, or are maybe pregnant or with young infants, I will not go into great detail about the origin of Jake’s lassitude. I will only say that sometimes young children like to, shall we say, withhold certain body functions, and that sometimes leads to, shall we say, undesirable results.

Oh! Did I mention I also washed the floors today?

So now that it is past 7:30, I say screw the chocolate. I am going straight for the wine.

Is it really only Tuesday?

Posted on by

I’ve been in an absolute flurry of activity the past couple of days, the details of which are much to boring to divulge, but believe me: flurry of activity. I will share with you two major accomplishments from the past couple of days: a) I finished my Christmas shopping, and b) I was in and out of Superstore with everything on my list in only twenty minutes! Much as I dislike shopping, I love grocery shopping, and if you put me in a situation where there are not only groceries, but also cosmetics, vitamins, and Christmas ornaments, I’m sure to get distracted and spend more time and money than is absolutely necessary. Therefore, the twenty minute trip is an accomplishment in my world. By now you’re probably thinking, I thought she wasn’t going to divulge boring details? Ha! You should see how boring the other hundred accomplishments were, that my quick Superstore trip is considered NOT boring.

Have you ever read The Nanny Diaries? There is a great scene in which the nanny visits FAO Schwartz a few days before Christmas, and it is just total chaos with children shrieking and lying on the floor, and a big voice over the loudspeaker “Welcome to our world of toys” and grim-faced parents with a “let’s just get through this” expression. That scene perfectly describes my feelings about the mall. I went to the mall on Saturday night – yes, Saturday night – to finish my Christmas shopping and I felt like I had blasted off and landed on some other planet. The moisture was being sucked out of my skin by the hideous recycled air and children were crying and I was staring at the Hot Wheels Colour Shifters in a befuddled way: sports car or rescue vehicle? But! I’m finished shopping, so hooray.

This week feels long already. I can’t believe it’s only Tuesday. But I heard that “I’d Really Love to See You Tonight” song this morning and it made my day. This is when it really pays to listen to a radio station geared towards old people: the sheer volume of 1970’s light rock love songs. It is a genre – I feel I must mention – that my husband abhors. I may as well stick pins in his eyes, as force him to listen to light rock from the 70’s.

Speaking of my husband, poor dear, he is very upset these days. I don’t know if you live with a New England Patriots fan, or maybe you are a New England Patriots fan yourself, but they lost to the Colts on Sunday night. It was, as my husband said, the game of the year, and they lost. My husband is still somewhat scarred from Superbowl 38 (I think it was 38?) and so Sunday’s loss has made him VERY UPSET. If you see a Patriots fan, give them a hug. They need it.

So, enough random thoughts for one day. I have a flurry of activity to keep up! But don’t worry! I’ll save only the exciting, juicy, Superstore-like details for you.

Weekend Update

Posted on by

1. I purchased 250 candies for Halloween, and lovingly made up twenty little gift bags with an assortment of goodies. If we got more than twenty trick-or-treaters, I thought, I would just give out the mini chocolate bars and bags of Sour Kids separately. The boys headed out to trick-or-treat and I stayed home to hand out candy, happily watching a recording of John Cusack (hubba hubba) on Jay Leno. I waited. And waited. I started to feel like some sad little debutante waiting for her date, who had obviously stood her up for a better option. (“He cometh not”, she said.) In the end I had two trick-or-treaters and now I have a plethora of candy with no home. Since trick-or-treaters were in short supply on our block, you can probably imagine the volume of candy amassed by my little pirate and dinosaur, who, technically, was an Allosaurus, not a T-Rex, because he was living in the Jurassic period, whereas the T-Rex lived in the Cretaceous period, just so you know. In addition, two very lovely neighbours actually went out and purchased special large treats just for them! Very kind, especially the neighbour who gave them candy popcorn, which the children have generously shared with me.

2. Another neighbour suggested that kids were not trick-or-treating much this year due to the swine flu, either because they had contracted it or because their parents were wary of them contracting it. If this is true, it is the last straw for me. I have reached saturation point with regards to information about the swine flu. This may or may not include helpful emails from certain people which detail that a) if you contract the flu, we are all going to die, or, alternately, b) if you get the flu shot, we are all going to die. I will write about the flu only if and when I or my family contracts the flu, and then I will simply whine about my symptoms, and NOT about conspiracy theories regarding the government, the pharmaceutical companies, and the sellers of hand sanitizers. I bet you are looking forward to that.

3. In years past, I dreaded the end of Daylight Savings Time, and not just because shortly it will be completely dark at 4:30 pm. I had the kind of children who would wake up at the exact same time every day no matter what time they went to bed, and it would take about a week – a cranky, sleep-deprived week – to adjust to the new time. There is something psychologically very bad about having a toddler wide awake at 4:58 am. “How did your kids do with the time change?” I blearily asked a mom at a playgroup, who subsequently looked at me like I was a little slow on the uptake. “Fine,” she said, “I just put them to bed an hour later and then they slept an hour later.” I looked at her, slack-jawed, like that was the most unbelievable, incredible piece of information I had ever received. But, huzzah! I am now part of that demographic! I put my kids to bed later, and they wake up later! It’s a miracle! They are not waking up at ungodly hours and morphing into crazed, sleep-deprived little goblins! And as a result, I am not a crazed, sleep-deprived, mid-thirties goblin! Hooray indeed.

Post-Birthday Depression

Posted on by

I knew today would be a bad day. I wonder if that is a self-fulfilling prophecy? I mean, if you think a day is going to be bad, does that mean that karmically you are making your day bad? I’ve been reading this interesting book called “How Yoga Works” and it talks about sowing seeds, positive and negative, and I can’t help but think that if I believe a day is going to be bad, then it will be bad.

It’s all my fault anyway. I was talking to a friend on Monday and I said that I couldn’t believe how well Jake was doing with all this birthday attention. He had been looking forward to his own birthday for about seven months, and I thought with all the buildup there would be a major letdown. That hasn’t happened, I said happily to my friend, I keep waiting for the ball to drop. And let me tell you, people, the freaking ball has dropped. It dropped hard. It dropped so hard it left a big, smoking hole in the ground and all that is left is me, wondering when I will learn not to bring curses upon myself.

Last night there was the post-birthday meltdown and ensuing sadness “I don’t want it to not be my birthday!” that kept Jake up an hour past his normal bedtime, which is highly unusual for him, being the type of kid who falls asleep seconds after going to bed. Needless to say, he was pretty tired today, and started to cry when I left him at school. It’s so heartbreaking to watch a four-year-old stoically wiping away silent tears, walking in his lineup with his giant backpack on. I felt totally deflated, despite knowing that after I left, he would be just fine. And he was, but the rest of the day was one big roller coaster of emotions. It’s hard to blame the kid: he’s exhausted after all, plus he has post-birthday depression. After four days of various celebrations, one is bound to succumb to the doldrums.

But the celebrations were great, especially the one that included eight small kids and a clown. If you live in the Calgary area, I would really recommend Button the Clown – she was very entertaining for that age group, and not at all creepy. Just make sure you call her Button, not Buttons. When I called to confirm, I got her husband (and I’m not making this up) Buddy the Clown on the phone. He tersely said, “Her name is Button. She is not plural.” Oh, snap! When I related this conversation to a friend, she said, “Button the Clown is married to Buddy the Clown? I wonder if they have clown babies.” And I will confess that the image that immediately popped into my head was so incredibly disturbing that I had to question my own mental stability. Again.

Anyway, I’m going for an early bedtime tonight and I’m going to sow the seeds of positive thoughts for a better day tomorrow. Repeat after me, it’s going to be a good day….