I Worry

As my oldest son gets older, my worries have changed. I have no answers, only questions.

I thought as the kids got older, the worries would be easier (yes, I was delusional) but they certainly aren't. I can no longer control his behaviour (still delusional if I thinking I could ever control it). I can only give advice, even when unsolicited, and hope he makes the right decisions.

This learning curve is steep, I tell ya. And somehow I don't see it leveling off anytime soon.

Vodka anyone?

It's Been 12 Long Years....

and I love you just the same.

Okay, so the song says 5 longs year but we surpassed that years ago.

Yesterday, May 8th, Jay and I celebrated our 12 wedding anniversary. It was also Mother's Day (as I am sure you know) and May 7th (Saturday) was my birthday.
Do you feel a little bit sorry for poor Jay trying to handle all those occasions in one weekend?

I do.

But if you know Jay, you also know that he handles this like a pro.

Saturday morning, my 37th birthday, I ran a 10 km race with my friend, Terry-Lyn. When it comes to running, she is the hare and I am the turtle. But she happily (I think) ran at my pace, encouraging me, cheering me on, even yelling a bit to get me mad to run faster. You see, I had a goal. I started the race hoping to finish in under 60 min. Well actually I started out wanting to run it in under 55...turns out if I would have thought about it a bit, that just isn't possible for me, yet.

Thanks to her I finished in 58:37. And I literally almost lost my lunch steps from the finish line. Gross eh? But what the proves is that I ran as fast as was physically possible for me. I recovered in about 30 seconds and was very happy I met my goal.

Next up, Jay informed me I had an appointment at noon. I had no clue what it was and I loved not knowing. I had my suspicions but he pretty much fouled every guess with a rational explanation. Dude does his surprises up right.

Turns out it was an Indian head massage (which as I found out has very little to do with your head) followed by a hot stone massage. Oh my word. Let me just tell you that every ounce of pain I felt during the run was more than made up for by the massages. I was as relaxed as a puddle of goo when I was done.

I was then picked up by three handsome boys and whisked off for a hot coffee and bagel followed by mini-golf and a steak supper out. At home I was treated to homemade cards.

And gifts. Which Kamden felt he should model.

It was, as birthdays go, pretty damn fantastic.

And then, just because that wasn't enough, he also got me a make-up 101 lesson to share with a friend.

I am not sure I deserve all this. I don't really need to say this, it is quite obvious but I'll say it anyway because he deserves the credit. As husbands go, I hit the jack pot.

Jay, you are unbelievable. Simply the best. Sharing my life with you is well, beyond fantastic. Thank you for all you did to make me feel special and loved this weekend and every single day of the year. I love you more than I could ever express in words!

Score!

It is soccer season! And Kamden's uniform is made for him, not me.

He was pretty pumped for his first game this past Monday.

He was not as impressed with my need to liberally photograph him in his new uniform (that doesn't make him look like a third world orphan donning a donated women's uniform!).

But I couldn't help myself. I mean look at him!

And then for icing on the cake, he scored the first goal in the first game of the season! Kind of makes up for his sad little face at the end of the indoor season when he didn't score any goals.

Soccer Mom is going to make a resurgence! Be afraid, be very afraid!

So....

Here I am two weeks later, trying with all my might to eke a blog post out.

See that above? That is my day planner. No it isn't as full as some people's, I am sure. But it's busy for me.

I am not going to compete with anyone to see who is busier. Oh how I hate that. Your busy does not outrank my busy. My busy is my busy. (or something...)

I have always believed that we make choices and "the busy" is just another choice we make.

I made a committment. So I have to be busy. But, I don't necessarily have to like it.

My biggest issue is that I don't seem to have the energy to do the things I love to do anymore. My camera is dusty. This blog is dusty for goodness sake. Don't ask about the coffee tables.

Sure, if I never sat down to relax for five minutes, I would have the time. But without the relaxing there is nothing left for the creative energy to do the things I love. Without the creative energy, there is no creativity. With the relaxing there is no time. See my problem? Vicious circle.

Sure I could cut back on sleep but what purpose would that serve? None, I assure you. Life is too short to go through it sleep deprived.

The problem is, how can life be fulfiling without the things we love?

So.

This is where I am. Trying to figure it all out.

For myself.

I Must Read

I have always loved to read but I took a hiatus when the boys were little, you know, due to the lack of time thing. Oh and the fact that when I read I have a tendency to block out all other noise or activity going on around me. A bomb could go off and I would just keep on reading thinking I'll check that out when I finish this chapter.

Not really a good scenario when you have little kids running around, particularly one that knocks his own teeth out.

However, since they are now at an age where they are less likely to stick their finger in a light socket, I have taken my habit to a whole new level.

I devour books. On vacation last month, I finished the last book in the Harry Potter Series (Book 7 is BIG - caused grief with suitcase weights, let me tell you) and since I had run out of books, borrowed my mom's book.

I read Water for Elephants in 2 days.

I could barely put it down to eat and mix myself another drink.

I am pretty excited to see the movie which comes out later this month (Reese Witherspoon, yay!).

Now that was a good book. I can devour a mediocre book in 4-5 days tops.

I don't buy books. I am a huge fan of the library. Free and ample selection. I am all about that. I rarely re-read a book and we have a lack of storage issue in our house. Hence, no books.

Despite this we have boxes of books cluttering up our one storage space. Clearly I did not implement the no buying book policy soon enough.

When we returned from vacation I returned the last Harry Potter book (I really enjoyed the series and look forward to watching the movies) and the Jodi Piccoult book (I forget which one now) that had travelled to Florida with us and neglected to check out my usual 3-4 books.

This past week I was going into withdrawal.

I would sit down on the couch after supper with a cup of tea and go, now what?

I was reading the sale flyers in desperation.

It was bad.

Today, I visited my local library got a stack of completely new to me authors.

I am half way through the first book already.

To say I love reading would be kind of an understatement. It's practically like breathing to me.

He's....Toothless!

And also accident prone.

See that?

He lost is other front tooth.

Guess how?

It didn't get really loose and then fall out. Oh no. This is Kamden we are talking about.

He knocked it out. With his own knee. He has a dent in his knee to prove it.

Unfortunately I did not witness this marvelous feat. I mean not just anyone can knock out their own tooth out, especially with thier knee.

Our Kamden is talented.

Jack claimes it was a collision with the couch in which he doubled into two, likely to take the brunt of the impact. I guess he didn't account for a knee in the face.

Which conicidentally enough, he is aware can happen. He kneed himself in the forehead not too long agou while jumping around on the floor. I saw him do and yet, I still could not explain to you how he did it.

He cried that time. This time, no tears. He was a bit concerned about the blood. I explained that teeth bleed much less when they are ready to come out.

And see that mess under his nose? He did that at school. He was sitting somewhere and fell (I have no idea!)into some dirt or something. The story was not quite clear.

He does not get this from me. Oh no.

(No one mention that I had knocked both teeth out by the time I was 4, m'kay. It is our little secret. I didn't use my knee so it is much less newsworthy.)

I Miss This

I started blogging way back in March 2006 (wow, 5 years ago, time flies). For the next several years, I was an avid blogger, posting on this, that and everthing in between.

I loved it.
I developed a love of writing, of expressing myself. This, considering in my previous life I had despised any form of expressing my thoughts in any form of coherant manner, was no small acheivement.

2010 saw dramatic decreases in my post numbers. My heart just was not in it in anymore. I don't know why.

And now that I am working far more, my desire to blog has waned even further. It took me a week to post our vacation post, for goodness sake.

The other day, Kamden needed to bring a story about when he was a baby to school. The first place we looked to find one was in the blog book from 2006.

We laughed. We cried (from laughing so hard). And we lauged some more. (My writing was pretty laughable)

It reminded me of why I do this. Those memories are priceless and not a one of them did I remember until we read the post out loud.

I am reminded not only of the memories I am preserving but of the community I have missed while I have been absent from this world.

I miss y'all.

Obviously now that I am working, my time to read blogs is much more limited. At the end of the day, after working on a computer all day, I am not that keen on logging onto Google Reader.

While I was on vacation, I did have the time and I realized how much I missed reading my favourite blogs.

So what does this mean?

I hope it means that I will make the time to do something I love.

It's not a promise but it's darn close.