In Which I Hide From Adult Responsibilities In Ridiculous Pipe Dreams

Tags

books, life, Twilight, writing

I like to hide from reality.

I mean, my reality is mess right now. I never know when I get up in the morning how much work/parenting I’m going to have to do. PH’s energy levels vary from “practically functional” to “zzzzzzz”. I almost always do the morning diapers/breakfast/clothes/school routine (although PH did handle things this morning, giving me the first sleep in I have had in many moons). Evenings, though, vary wildly. Sometimes he cooks dinner and puts the baby down. Other times I cook dinner and put both kids to sleep.

Then there’s work. I’m working part time at the vet clinic because I like a steady cash stream. But they’re always badgering me to work more. In dire circumstance, I agree, and then I feel guilty for putting more burden on PH. Other times, like today, I refuse and feel guilty and worthless for not being able to do my job.

On top of the clinic job, I’m supposed to be focusing on my dog training career. But I have extremely mixed feelings about my dog training. On the one hand, I enjoy teaching classes and helping people with their dogs privately… WHILE I AM DOING IT. The process of arranging appointments, booking appointments, calling back prospective clients etc etc fills me with crippling levels of anxiety.

So I haven’t been doing it much.

Instead of focusing on actually getting work, instead I’ve been focusing on a complete pipe-dream.

My book.

Remember when I first starting complaining about Twilight, and I made my Rowling vs Meyer rants? Well, for NaNoWriMo in 2012 I wrote a book which I intended to be a sort of Twilight parody, featuring a strong female character named Stella and a gentle zombie love interest named Howard.

But as I worked on it, it stopped being a parody and became a unique book in its own right. I got attached to Stella and Howie, and I realized that in order for it to be a true opposite of Twilight it would need to have a complex plot, three dimensional characters and so on. So I spent years and years achieving that.

After years of beta readers’ feedback and re-writes and re-re-writes and obsessive editing, I’ve decided to finally publish the thing. And so, when I should be out leaving flyers for my dog training business or working more hours at the clinic, I’ve spent it getting my book published.

It’s scheduled to come out in December. I have an author website, and a Facebook page, and an instagram account. I have it available for pre-order on kindle, and it’s listed on Goodreads. I’ve arranged a giveaway on The Militant Baker‘s website on November 30th. I am setting up advertising. I have it listed on Netgalley for review (hopefully they’ll be gentle – Netgalley readers are notoriously tough). I have mailed copies to the big pre-publication review houses.

Whenever I get a free moment I spend it on promoting my stupid feminist zombie book.

Because the thing is, what I really want to do is stay home and write all day. Not call people back about their dogs (as much as I love dogs) or work at a vet clinic. I love writing. That’s what I want to do.

Or at least, I think I do. So far, I have only gotten rave reviews on my book. I’ve emailed free copies to strangers and they have replied with enthusiasm. A complete stranger, who reviews books harshly from what I can tell from his Goodreads account, said my book “far surpasses what it was inspired by” and called it a “masterpiece” and that MADE MY DAY. Another, a children’s author who has won a bunch of awards from her book, said she stayed up all night reading it. And man, that got me through another day.

But if a rave review can make my day, what will a negative review do? Because I’ll get them. It’s a book full of swear words and feminism so some people out there are going to HATE IT. I like to think that I’ll be okay with it as long as people hate it for the right reasons (feminism) and not because they think I’m a hack.

I think that when it is finally published and more reviews come in, I’m in for an emotional rollercoaster.

But in the meantime, I am living in this dream world where my book could be adored by everyone and I could become a famous author and stay home and just write in a white room with a lovely view.

That makes much more sense than just, like, dealing with reality, right?

The True Hallmark of Mother’s Day: Taking What We Can Get

Tags

beach, five year old, holidays, mother's day, one year old, parenthood, reality

Every year we are flooded by media about Mother’s Day from all of the retailers hoping to sell stuff to us. Radio ads urge husbands and sons to buy diamonds. Chocolates and flowers grace the most prominent areas of the grocery store, and everyone posts old photos of their mother or pictures of their own children with glowing social media boasts about love and being blessed and that sort of crap.

But under that, there is a current of disappointment. The people whose mothers have died and hurt to be reminded, the people whose mothers were just… really terrible at being a mother, and not really worthy of being honored, the people who wish they were mothers, or were ALMOST mothers, but aren’t…

…and the mothers of young children who face a day like any other – but with the added bitterness that comes from the contrast between their lives and the Mother’s Day commercials.

I am sure that some mothers out there got the Hallmark Card Mother’s Day – they got breakfast in bed and spent the day with guilt-free leisure while their usual jobs were done by others.

But I don’t know any of those mothers.

Every mother I spoke to – mothers of small children like I am – said that they had a good Mother’s Day… really… I mean, yeah, it was mostly the same as any other day, but there was something good about it.

A friend of mine got breakfast in bed. I mean, she had to buy the bacon and hashbrowns the day before, and she had to poke her husband and tell him to go make them for her, and he didn’t actually cook the hashbrowns, but she got bacon and eggs in bed and she figured that was good enough, really.

Another friend of mine had a nice barbecue at the house of a good friend of hers. And sure, her husband didn’t want to go at all and complained loudly about having to go – or maybe he didn’t go at all in the end, I don’t remember. Anyway, she went because she wanted to and she had a nice time, although she was annoyed about having to have a relationship fight in the process.

And as for me, well the baby slept until 9 am and PH dealt with Owl before that, so I got the best sleep in I have had in months, and then after the kids were in bed at night I sent PH to get me some pasta from my favourite restaurant, and some wine, and then I ate it at 9:30 pm while watching Mythbusters. So that was good.

During the day, I met up with another friend of mine (who had all three of her small children with her all day because her recently separated ex had decided to spend Mother’s Day cooking breakfast for other mothers at a Kinsman event and so was not available to help or do anything for the mother of his own kids) and we went to the beach.

The beach was nice, in a visiting-it-with-ungrateful-children sort of way. First they complained that they were cold. They refused to go near the water. They didn’t want to play in the sand. They wanted to go home and play video games.

But we, being experienced mothers, informed them that we didn’t give a tiny rat’s ass (not our actual words) how they felt, and we settled down on the sand anyway.

Fritter loved the beach. She ate sand and then when I carried her down to the water she happily splashed in the surf. She got covered in sand and thought it was fantastic.

The boys eventually warmed up to the beach. When they stopped whining about video games and claiming to be hungry despite having JUST eaten lunch, and when we put an end to their stick-based warfare, they finally started discovering crabs and sea shells and sand castles.

So our last hour there was quite peaceful, watching the kids dump sand into a puddle on a rock while Fritter followed them and tried to help, grabbing handfuls of sand in her tiny fists. We listened to the surf and smelled the sea air and looked at the mountains and enjoyed the sunshine and it was lovely.

At least until the boys started hitting each other with sticks again.

Of course, no Mother’s Day would be complete without a child asking the annual littany of  “why isn’t there a BOY’S day?” to which all of the present adults must answer in chorus, “EVERY DAY is BOY’S DAY.”

I’ll give this to Owl – he accepted the point of Mother’s Day very well. When I pointed out to my friend’s son that he got breakfast made for him every day, and that he got taken care of every day, he just argued that he couldn’t do those things yet. And of course I agreed but told him that that is why it is nice if, once a year, someone does those things in return for the mother who normally has to work at caring for other people and rarely for herself.

My friend’s son looked unconvinced but Owl took my side. Lord knows the poor kid hears me complain all the time about how much work I do looking after him.

In fact, he reiterated it today on the way to school. “Mother’s Day is when you get people to take care of you, instead of taking care of other people, right? But you did take care of me yesterday.”

And I told him that yes. While he is small, I don’t really get a day off. He can’t cook me breakfast, and he still needs me to make him dinner, and put him to bed. Daddy helped with some of it, so I got a break, but not the full Mother’s Day that you see in commercials. No woman with small children that I know got that. When the kids are this age, we take what we can get, because we know that Mother’s Day or not, they still need their diapers changed, and they still need to be entertained, and they still want dinner, and they don’t really give a damn how we feel about any of that.

But I do think that in a few years Owl will bring me breakfast in bed.

And in a few years, Fritter won’t need diapers changed.

And in a few years, things will be even better.

And I think that, considering the age of my kids, and life being what it is, yesterday was a darn good day.

 

In Which My Anxiety Fixates On Something That Is Completely Impossible To Prevent

Tags

anxiety, baby blues, mental health, post partum, SIDS

In the days following Fritter’s birth, I got a lot of questions about my mood from the public health office.  They called to check on me when we got home from the hospital, a week later, and again when Fritter was six weeks old.

Through some sort of file sharing with the hospital, they know that I have a history of depression and so they kept reminding me to expect baby blues. In fact, you could tell they expected it to turn into full on post-partum depression given the whole depressed-husband-and-a-four-year-old life situation.

I expected baby blues too. I mean, that’s pretty normal. Weepiness, sobbing over Skittles commercials… that sort of thing.

But it never came.

In fact, when they took me through a depression questionnaire at the six week mark, I passed with flying colours.

Look at me, all not-depressed

I don’t know why I have been spared any sort of bizarre hormonal fluctuations, or post partum depression, but I am grateful.

Maybe it was having the support of my parents and mother in law (who flew out here again once my parents returned back to Nova Scotia). I haven’t had to behave like a fully fledged adult since the nightmare that was early January.

Support. It helps.

In any case, I’m feeling pretty happy, but I DO still have my generalized anxiety gnawing at me.

When Owl was a baby, I used to fret over his head. I kept having images of accidentally crushing it like an egg or melon.

With Fritter, I am terrified of SIDS.

General Life Update Featuring A Lot of Urine, Some Unfounded Fretting, and Wood Pulp

Tags

cardboard, cravings, depression, help, incontinence, liver pain, parents, pica, pregnancy, third trimester

Well, it’s been long enough since I posted about my life that I’m now in an awkward position because I can’t post about my current life because you wouldn’t know what the hell I was talking about. So I need to clear up some of the backlog.

I know some of you are wondering how PH is doing.

He’s alive.

Generally, he is closer to staying alive than he was a couple of months ago.

But we aren’t out of the woods yet. No miracles.

If you asked me how I was doing, I could say “that DEPENDS”.

Depends, get it? No of course you don’t.

But you will.

In Which A Mysterious Disease Eats Months Of My Life, Part 3

Tags

disease, infection, intracranial hypertension, papilledema, toenails falling off

I saw the neurologist two weeks ago.

I was given a detailed form to fill out and then he admitted me into his office, flipping through the paper work.

“So, you think you have intracranial hypertension? What makes you think that?”

I described my symptoms, including the optic nerve swelling. He shone a light in my eyes.

“Yep, that’s papilledema all right. Okay, and how long have these symptoms been going on?” he said, glancing idly through the next few pages of my forms.

“Well… my eyes turned red on May 21st, and the headache and dizziness came a few days later.”

“Uh huh.” He asked a few more routine questions, and then I brought up the jaundice. He looked confused. “Jaundice?”

I guess he hadn’t read my referral from the internal medicine specialist very carefully.

“Yes,” I said patiently. “I had jaundice originally. And a rash. And lower back pain. And the my toenails fell off.”

The look on his face was priceless.

“Your TOENAILS FELL OFF?” He whirled around in his chair, stared at me, looked at PH for confirmation, and then whirled back to his computer and started looking through my bloodwork. “Okay, wait. Start from the beginning.”

Half an hour later he let me go, promising an MRI and a referral to an infectious disease specialist to try and figure out what the hell I had. He was the first doctor to actually take into consideration that I work with animals, and he wanted the ID to help rule out weird zoontic diseases.

I saw the infectious disease specialist today, which was less amusing. She was politely interested, and she gave me a requisition for some bloodwork to test for leptospirosis (looks like the original test that I requested was never actually done. She called the Center for Disease Control herself), lyme disease, brucella, q-fever… animal-related diseases. Considering I have had two people message me and point out that my symptoms match lyme disease, I think it was a good call. Although I haven’t had a tick on me since I was 15.

My MRI is scheduled for next week. We’ll see what it says.

Sometimes I feel like all these tests are pointless. Those are the times when I feel better. The visual disturbances are less than they were. I have no dizziness and only rare headaches. It does seem to be getting better slowly.

But then there are days like last Sunday, when my vision was so bad that I couldn’t read, couldn’t even really SEE. I could hear my pulse in my ears for the first time in over a week, and my head hurt badly enough that I took several extra strength Advil. The next couple of days I had continued bad visual disturbances and headaches. It seems to be settling out again, though.

At least people are finally starting to take me seriously. I could kiss that opthamologist.

In Which A Mysterious Disease Eats Months of My Life (Part 2)

Tags

blackouts, headache, i can hear my pulse, optic nerve edema, vision disturbances

When we last left our hero (me), I was recovering from a jaundice of unknown etiology and losing my toenails as the aftermath of some kind of infection. I had been lulled into thinking that since my symptoms were resolving, that I was actually getting better.

I thought it was a little weird when the skin on my hands started to peel off, but figured my skin was just dry.

When PH mentioned that my eyes were looking bloodshot, I shrugged it off.

The next morning, I walked to the bathroom sink, scratching my hands irritably, to look for moisturizer, and glanced at my face in the mirror.

“Oh my GOD,” I said.

“What?” mumbled PH from the bed.

“My EYES!”

“I told you…”

I looked like a character from a Stephenie Meyer… well, I won’t say novel… collection of pages with words on them.

My eyes were flamingly bloodshot, angrier than the angriest pink eye. But they felt totally normal. No sand in my eyes, no itching, no pain. They felt normal, but looked distinctly scary.

“Well, that’s weird…”

I was also having a lot of weird muscle pains. It felt like I’d spent a day hiking up mountains, instead of two weeks lying around letting other people take care of my three year old. My  hands continued to peel, shedding large pieces of parchment-like white flakes all over our house.

I booked a follow up with my useless GP when we arrived home and gave her all my records. She didn’t even shine a light in my eyes. She glanced over the paperwork I brought from Nova Scotia, and ordered repeat blood tests to make sure my liver enzymes continued to improve. She said the same thing all the other doctors had:

“I think this is some kind of a virus. Just rest and it will keep improving.”

“My mother thinks I have leptospirosis, because I work with animals and it can cause red eyes,” I said.

There was some tapping at the computer. I strongly suspect my doctor was googling leptospirosis.

“Well, I can add on a test for it but I think this is viral.”

I tried to go back to work.

It didn’t go well.

I shuffled aroound in my Crocs, alarming clients with my red eyes, routinely sweeping up my skin cells as they littered the floor, and then sinking to said floor to rest in between appointments.

“Go home,” my boss said.

My head was starting to hurt.

Like, really hurt.

In Which A Mysterious Disease Eats Months of My Life

Tags

illness, jaundice, liver, mysterious disease, new brunswick, Nova Scotia, rash, reunion, toenails falling off, vacation, virus

No, I’m not dead.

I’ve been touched by the comments and tweets that I’ve gotten, asking after me. You’re right, my blog has been very silent.

You see, I contracted a mysterious disease.

…Let me backtrack a bit.

So, in April I was extremely overworked. On top of the 35 hours I pull at the vet clinic, my dog training business was going through one of its booms again and I was out training almost every night during the week, and for 3-6 hours each weekend day as well. So I was working around 50 hours a week spread over all 7 days of the week.

But I had something to look forward to – vacation!

My 10 year Mount Allison University reunion was going to be in early May and a bunch of old friends from residence were attending. PH and I had planned a full 10 days home in the Maritimes, and the highlight was going to be the reunion. PH would drive me up to Sackville, New Brunswick and have dinner with my old friends, some of whom he knew from his own days at Mount Allison. Then he would go visit with his family and leave me to stay in residence with the girls, reminiscing and eating and dancing, for two whole days.

I don’t know when I’ve been so excited. I loved my university days. I loved the town. I loved the school. I loved the people. And I was going back, and it was going to be AWESOME.

So I dragged myself through day after exhausting day, counting the sleeps until vacation.

Then, the day before we were due to leave, I collapsed at work.

Like, literally collapsed.

Conversations With A Toddler Part The First

Tags

awkward conversations, parenting, toddlers

Talking to a toddler can be a strange adventure.

I’ve had some truly bizarre and awkward ones with Owl, who is now two and three quarters. I need to start documenting them, because if they seem weird to me, his doting mother, I can only imagine how bizarre they will sound to you.

Owl: Mommy…. what I doing?

Me: You’re putting your fingers on your nipples, honey.

Owl: Yeah. I am. I am putting my fingers on my nipples.

Me: Okay, step into your undies, please.

Owl: No. I busy. I busy putting my fingers on my nipples.

—

A few days later

Owl: Mommy… what I doing?

Me: You’re… you’re putting your finger in your foreskin, honey.

Owl: No.

Me: Yes, yes you are. Yup. That is your finger up your foreskin.

Owl: No I not. This my penis. Look. What I doing?

Me: Yes, that is your penis, and this PART of your penis is your foreskin, and you are putting your finger in it. Please step into your undies.

Owl: This my foreskin? I put my finger in it?

Me: PLEASE STEP INTO YOUR UNDIES BEFORE I COUNT TO THREE.

Dear Canadian Tire. I have money. I would like to exchange it for goods and services.

Tags

bad customer service, business, Canadian Tire, climbers, play sets, Step 2, Toys R Us

Now that our yard is almost habitable (there’s still the ant problem, but we’re working on it) PH and I are beginning to dream big – like, maybe, we could put something out there for Owl to play on.

We’ve talked a lot about what that might be, but we are constricted by two things:

1. Our yard has the dimensions of a postage stamp

and

2. Our yard is built four feet up on a retaining wall, and the fence blows in the breeze:

So we need something that will fit in our yard without giving Owl the opportunity of tumbling directly into or over our fence.

Everything we have looked at has either been not awesome enough, or FAR TOO AWESOME for our yard.

Know Thyself. Know Thy Tomato Preferences.

Tags

cooking, dislikes, likes, spaghetti sauce, taste, tomato sauce

I’ve been thinking, and I’m beginning to wonder if I secretly dislike tomato sauce.

If so, I have kept it a very good secret from myself. I buy it frequently, always have. Spaghetti sauce is something we keep in large quantities, and use in several different recipes.

Many of my favourite foods involve tomato sauce – pizza, spaghetti, lasagna.

If you said to me, “here, taste this tomato sauce”, I’d say “sure!” and happily open wide.

And I like tomatoes. I like ketchup. I am friendly with all variations of this  member of the nightshade family.

But you wouldn’t know it from my food preferences.

When I order pasta in a restaurant, I hardly ever get something in a tomato based sauce. I get an alfredo, or a clear sauce.

I consider it a great treat when we order pizza with a pesto sauce (for a friend who is allergic to tomatoes) or simply lacking in sauce (perogie pizza is a favourite of mine).

If we are out of spaghetti sauce, PH discounts pasta as an option, but I am quite happy, when left to my own devices, to simply add cheese and garlic butter. In fact, I think I actually prefer it that way.

In fact, when I really think about it, there is very little that we add tomato sauce to that I would not eat just as happily or MORE happily without tomato sauce.

When I do eat things with tomato sauce on them, I DROWN them in cheese. I don’t really ENJOY foods like spaghetti unless I have cheese to go with them. Meanwhile, I rarely add cheese to an alfredo, unless it is just a sprinkle of parmesan.

So, if I prefer foods without tomato sauce to foods with tomato sauce, and if I mute tomato sauce with cheese whenever possible…

How much can I really like tomato sauce?