Wednesday, February 28, 2007

Busy, Busy, Busy, Boring, Boring, Boring

So this is going to be short; it’s been one of those days and I’m beat. All I’ve done all day is write frantically and that’s not particularly what I want to do now. To tell you the truth I want to climb in bed and sleep but alas that is not one of the choices I have. Tomorrow is what they call an “ Opposition Day” in the House of Commons. We need to prepare the Government to debate a motion brought forth today by the Opposition. We got dinged this week although not to badly. Our Ministry was not the lead Ministry so we only had to prepare one speech. Unfortunately, it fell to me to write it. Normally a speech takes about 10 days to work up. Ideally 17 days (there is an extensive approval/editing process). I started writing at around 10 this morning. It all would have been fine except today Daniel and Sam left to visit family in Manitoba. I darted out of work at 3:30 to whip them to the airport and then fly back to work – Kamryn in tow. She was good. She coloured and watched television in my office and only seemed to demand my exclusive attention when I was editing with my boss – oops. Ah well he has kids. We didn’t get out of there until 7 though – yikes. Grabbed some barbecued chicken for a quick dinner on the way home. MMmmm healthy… not. I just got her in bed and now I’m waiting for our translators whose task it is to translate the entire speech into French and send it back to me tonight so that I can deliver it to the Minister’s office before I go to bed. Sigh. Did I whine about how tired I am?

I’m tired and I miss my little boy. I’ve left him once since he came home. Once for 24 hours. Can I survive 6 days? I keep wondering how he’s doing. Daniel and Sam just know how to push each others buttons. Daniel doesn’t have any patience and Sam is one proud, stubborn and mischievous (did I tell you he breaks things now just because he can?) two-year old. Unfortunately, Daniel often forgets the two-year old part and I need to remind him. Now I’m not there to remind him. I’m sure they will do fine. This is good for them.

I’m kind of enjoying being a single parent of one school-aged child. So far (6 hours in; lol) pretty easy. Without a sibling around to impress, influence, cajole and generally get into trouble with she is such a good kid. Okay she’s normally a good kid but her and her brother can bring the house down around your head with little effort and quite regularly do.

We’ll see how tomorrow goes. Tomorrow I have to go to work. Go and get my eyes fixed (I found out on Monday that both my retinas are partially detached. They will fix the left one tomorrow and the right one next week). It’s supposed to be a fast and relatively painless procedure. I plan to go back to work afterwards. Dart off at around 2:30 to collect Kamryn from school and then go back to work with her in tow. They are calling for a snow storm though so perhaps that isn’t the best idea. Considering the late night we had tonight I may beg off.

Friday night, I’d like for the two of us to either go to Build-a-Bear or a movie together. Whatever we don’t do on Friday we will do on Sunday. Saturday we are hosting an 85th birthday party for my Aunt. Kamryn is super excited about that. All told – busy and tired. I think I might curl up in bed with a book and come back to see if my translation has been delivered in an hour or so.

Sorry once again for the banal entry. I promise to write something more profound in the coming days. Promise. Cheerio.

Friday, February 23, 2007

Moments that make you go awwww.....

Sam (trying for some alone time maybe?): Kamryn go to your room.

Kamryn: No.

Sam (who has never thought of a question he didn't immediately voice): Why not?

Kamryn: Because I want to play with you. Because you're my best friend.

Thursday, February 22, 2007

This isn't going to be all that interesting

Do you think its possible for me to be younger today that I was yesterday? I think so. I certainly feel younger. Funny, what stress can do to you. So I had to do a competition for work — only way to get promoted. I’m not going to get promoted (I think there are too many good people ahead of me) but I didn’t want to humiliate myself on the test either. I could have chosen, as some did, not to do the competition but I felt like that was admitting defeat before even getting out of the gate. I much prefer to round the first turn before I run up the white flag (how’s that for mixing your metaphors). Mostly I don’t have the self-esteem to boldly hold my ground that I am as worthy as my colleagues of my position without a test to measure where I fit. Dumb. Dumb. Dumb but so very true. I don’t remember being so unsure of my abilities as a child/teenager.

So I applied for the stupid promotion. I worked for days on my application and was screened in. There was a point where I was hoping that I wouldn’t make it pass that initial screening. You can imagine my delight three weeks ago, while I lay at home sick with the stomach flu and got the “congratulations, you’ve been screened-in” call. My response was “wonderful.” I think the manager who called me actually though I MEANT wonderful. It wasn’t that kind of exclamation.

Anyway so then I started to procrastinate. I wouldn’t start studying I reasoned until the following week for a variety of reasons that I came up with. Then I found ways to put it off even further. In the end though I did study — hard. I crammed quite a bit of information in my head and only a little flowed back out through my ears. I studied most of last week. I studied all weekend. I studied and I studied and I studied and last night I was so completely bored with studying that my head almost exploded. This morning I wrote a three-hour exam. The questions were fair and thorough and some of them were damn hard but I didn’t draw a complete blank on any of them although as generally happens to most people (I think) after an exam I realized I knew more than I actually put down on paper. Annoyingly enough I don’t know what a pass is. There were 5 questions – all essay. I’m guessing they are all weighted equally. I hope a pass is 50% (although I sincerely doubt it). If it was 50%, I’m good. 60% probably. 70% hmmm… church this Sunday? My colleague expects they’ll simply bell curve it. I think she is probably right. Ah well. I didn’t expect to win the competition anyhow. No matter, I am so relieved it is over and that I can return to life as I know it.

Life as I know it isn’t so hot. Kamryn is sick. Sick. Sick. Sick. She hasn’t been to school all week. It’s unlikely she will go to school this week at all. She supposedly has a virus although I just finished googling pneumonia. She had another “virus” a week and a half ago and got sent home from school with a temp of 103 (her temp was COMPLETELY normal in the morning when I sent her to school). So that was Friday. Her temp was up on Saturday and broke Saturday afternoon sometime. She was fine on Sunday and returned to school on Monday. Fine all week although she complained of a headache. Sunday her temp spiked again. I immediately assumed that the fever she had one week previous and the headache were all linked together and I dragged her to the doctor on Monday. Doctor looked her over, did a strep test, told me she had a virus and sent us home. I got a distinct feeling from my doctor that I was overreacting and wasting everyone's time (although it could be that she was just busy and that it had been a long day for her). I was content with her diagnosis and felt a little stupid.

Monday night, AFTER Motrin, her temp passed 104 and was heading for 105. Gave her tynenol stripped her down and gave her a shower. All was then fine in the world and her temp went down to 101. When she got up yesterday she was fever-free for about an hour. Today it was 101 when she got up (she had a dose of Motrin around 2am). It comes down with Motrin and the occasional tylenol chaser. She has a horrid cough and seems to be getting worse as the week progresses rather than better. This morning was the first morning she didn't complain when I told her she couldn't go to school. She is NEVER sick and has never had a fever this long before. I just called to check up on her (she is with my mother) and Mom tells me that Kamryn coughed until she threw up. That’s the second time this week she has done that. Poor kid. I think that tomorrow we’re going back to the doctor.

So I have a sick kid AND I have a social life. I’m kind of a homebody and actually don’t mind not doing much socially. This weekend might kill me. Lol Friday, I have a friend from out of town and her husband coming to dinner. Kind of a pain. Dinner on a Friday night. There’s work and then you rush home to tidy up a little and throw dinner together. I really want to see her on the other hand I hate week-night social engagements. Ugh!

Saturday, I have an untold number of people coming for dinner. My fault for not asking for RSVPs. Yikes. I THINK we’ve got about 13 people coming. It makes a difference between sitting at the table or doing a buffet. I much prefer to sit at the table so I’m hoping for less rather than more. We can sit 10 easily at the table and 12 close friends. Lol I’m a terrible host.

Sunday morning bright and early (like 4 am) I have to take my mother to the airport. That’s going to be hard. Then, if Kamryn has recovered I’d also like to have her invite a friend over to play. Not looking very likely now. Her little friend keeps having her over for mommy-free playdates and Kamryn never gets a chance to return the favour. I feel bad.

Lots going on when really want I want to do is NOTHING. Okay, one good thing just happened. Tomorrow is an Opposition Day in the House of Commons. That’s a day when the Opposition Party can introduce a motion to be debated. You find out what its going to be the day before and then maniacally write speeches for the debate. Obviously depending on what is being debated a particular department takes the lead. It’s only been Defence once since I started her in April – we wrote until 2 am. There was a good chance it was going to be us today. I so wasn’t looking forward to abandoning my sick child and further abusing my whipped brain and sitting here writing speeches for the next 12 hours. Luckily its not us today but some poor sods at Citizenship and Immigration. Woohoo for the good guys at defence.

Anyway so that’s life in the T. household. Not the most exciting of updates but we don’t have the most exciting lives.

Wednesday, February 14, 2007

Somehow I ended up talking about Discipline

So I decided last week that in the interests of not letting this blog die that I would post every Wednesday night. Wednesday’s Daniel has volleyball and I’m generally home alone. He hasn’t gone in the last two weeks. Last week he claimed he was sore/tired (I think he just couldn’t be bothered lol). This week I think he’s not going because of Valentine’s Day. I’m proud of myself for not being all passive-aggressive about the whole thing. I didn’t want him to go but as per my standard Operation procedures, I wasn’t going to say anything I was just going to wait and see. I was going to buy special stuff for a Valentine’s dinner and then just not cook it when he ran into the house and then dashed off for Volleyball.

I do that and it doesn’t help anything. When I’m mad I just pout about and wait for him to guess what I might be mad about. Then I get all anxious and upset and I don’t sleep and nothing gets accomplished and that’s just not very effective. It’s stupid. So I’m talking to him before I get that worked up. It works so much better AND I sleep at night; isn’t that cool? I still agonize about bringing things up first though. I’m a fool. You’d think after almost 11 years I wouldn’t worry about what Daniel’s reaction will be whenever I’m angry with him. I can still remember our first fight. I don’t know what it was about at all. I do remember calling and leaving an angry message on his answering machine and then having to lie down because I was having an anxiety attack. Lol I don’t know how my brain got this screwed up that I am so incapable of letting anyone (it’s not just Daniel) know that they have upset me.

An old friend of mine once told me that I worry too much about what other people think. Yup, I do. Can’t change that. I want people to like me and my self-esteem isn’t what it should be (I can understand easily why people don’t like me; I don’t think I’m unlikable but I can see my own annoying traits I’m just powerless to change them) so I constantly look for validation.

Did my parents do this to me? I think they might have. They tried but they were strict and had high standards and I don’t think they often told me outright that I was doing well even when I was. They were big into negative discipline. Positive… not their thing.

I try to be a little more balanced with my kids. Yup we have our share of negative discipline. Some days the kids live in time-outs and when they aren’t in time-out one of their toys probably is. While I try there is yelling in out house (Daniel doesn’t try much at all much to my annoyance). Still, I am free with praise. I compliment the smallest things (i.e. Sam hanging up his coat when he comes in the house; children eating without whining throughout the meal, Kamryn saying her prayers like a little girl instead of a rabid weasel high on crack etc.) I think it works as effectively as negative discipline (oh I definitely believe negative discipline has its place as well).

We’re also big into choices right now. Was that I good choice? What happened when you made that choice? Are you going to make that choice again? I’m never going to have to tell Sam for instance to not climb on the footboard of my bed because yesterday morning his little stockinged feet slipped and he thumped his chin but good. There was much crying and on top of all that there was a discussion about choices from me that I know he didn’t enjoy much at all. Been telling him for weeks that he shouldn’t climb on it – yesterday he learned why. This seems to work rather well and it’s a new approach we’ve taken. My neighbour was discussing this approach to discipline the other day with me. She has a son much like Sam – an angel who if you blink fast morphs into a holy terror. Lol Her son turned 4 today and he’s my inspiration. He’s such a sweet, polite and well-behaved little boy. I sooooooo remember how much of a handful he was at Sam’s age. I have faith that we will survive the preschool years. Lol

You know whenever I think about discipline, I think back to our Dear birthparent letter: When I wrote it so long ago, I was trying to impress birthparents. I read and researched and looked at other people’s letters and yes, I wanted to tell them about me but mostly I just wanted to impress them so they’d pick me. I never thought that once we had adopted that I would ever think back to the letter — that contract — ever again. I think of it often though. Especially the following line: “We believe the most important thing we can give your child is a strong sense of self and the confidence to one day go out into the world happy, confident and successful.” Ever so often I find myself consciously (I hope I do it unconsciously as well) working towards that goal and I’m a little proud of myself. Ever so often I give myself a little pat on the back for doing things almost right (sometimes I’m well aware I’m a also complete screw-up lol).

I feel a certain responsibility not just because I’m moulding these little people so that she will one day go forth in the world as productive citizens but also because someone else had the faith to entrust them to me and I promised them that I would do my best.

On a somewhat related note (but mostly because I want to brag even though I personally didn’t do anything but pick the right school) Kamryn’s school was on the front page of the City section of our local paper last week. It was ranked #1 in the province (tied actually with 37 other schools) out of 2812 elementary schools. The Frasier Institute’s Report Card on Ontario's Elementary Schools: 2007 Edition rates 2,812 English and French, public and separate elementary schools from across Ontario based on nine key indicators derived from province-wide tests of reading, writing, and mathematics skills administered by the province’s Education Quality and Accountability Office. A small number of private schools are also included. Each school is assigned a rating out of 10. Kamryn’s school got a perfect 10! (okay, I read the study and I don’t really understand how they come up with that number but perfect is perfect lol) It’s the first year they have been included in the study (they were too small a school in the past as 15 students from grades 3 and 6 must be tested in order to be included). I feel vindicated as a parent for having chosen this school even though there are so many good schools MUCH nearer to our home (our neighbourhood school was ranked 535th with a score of 7.9 which isn’t too shabby either but not a perfect 10). :)

Okay, I’ve written this at work and I will post it when I get home tonight despite it being Valentines Day and having Daniel at home instead of at Volleyball. See you next week – same bat time, same bat place.