Neetsirk

Well now.  It’s been a while, eh?

I’m sure anyone who reads this knows the whole story anyway, but my marriage ended last December.  We are getting a divorce.  The girls and I are currently living in a 3rd floor walk-up in the west end while we patiently wait for our brand spanking new co-op to be built!  I am still working at Be My Parents.  Getting back into the dating scene has been bizarre and daunting.  The girls are awesome.  I have a nanny and Saoirse is also going to pre-school back at Earth Mama, Earth Child.  Brighid is growing up so fast.  She’s so different than Saoirse was and I am loving watching her change.  I am also sad that people who used to be important in my girls’ lives are now hardly in the picture.

IE is dying and simultaneously killing my computer so we have been using Firefox.  Trouble is, all my bookmarks are in IE…

Life is good and shitty all at once.  Things are complicated and confusing and stressful.  There is chaos and instability all around and it’s making my head spin.

Speaking of spinning heads I am now offically very anemic.  I am low in both iron and B12 and will likely have to be on B12 shots for the rest of my life.  Right now they are three times a week but will eventually be down to once a month.  Hopefully the exhaustion and confuddled thinking will soon go away…

The girls are good.  Rob is good.  The house is shit.  Work is a mondo stressball.

-Brighid has this.  If Saoirse has it too it might account for her poop issues!  If I have it too it means that it’ll be easier to make go away in the girls and they can take pills instead of injections and poor Brighi won’t need to be scoped for malabsorbtion issues.  If I have it it’ll also account for my chronic fatigue and perhaps my “Baby Brain”.

-Whenever you see a news article on the Foster Care crisis, think of me and my new title of “Manager- Marketing Specialist” and empathise, ok?

-We might be getting a new(er) van.  Yippee!

-Fall has arrived, and with it, continued swimming lessons, a re-join at gymnastics and *drumroll* SOCCER FOR SAOIRSE!  Oy vey!

As per the Dr.’s recommendations Saoirse is now taking pro-biotics to try and fix her digestive issues and Brigh is going to be drinking coconut milk while she’s at the dayhome because she needs something high-fat.

We’ll see how things go!

You know, when you’re reading other people’s blogs sometimes you just skim through a sentiment and think, “Yeah. Ok.  Whatever.”  Tonight I had one of those moments that was profound to me but, I’m sure, dismiss-able to others.

I bought Saoirse size 4 clothes.  She has sprouted up lately like nothing I’ve seen and all her size 2 pants are way too short.  I could have bought size 3 but I don’t want to be buying a whole new wardrobe again in 3 months.

Size 4 clothes are big kid clothes.  I no longer shop in the baby or toddler section for her- no siree.  It’s the big girl section for Miss Saoirse-bum!

My little baby is growing up too fast.

I work for a Program hat is a gov’t contract.  Every year the gov’t renews the contract and we push on.  Not so this year.  The gov’t has decided to open it up to competition.  This means anyone can put a proposal in and they might get rewarded the contract.  After deliberation our Program had decided to apply and see what happens.  The original timeline was: June= announcement, July=deadline for proposals, August= susscessful candidate announced.

After some thinking, I decided to go back to work full time if we were awarded the contract.  It was a stressful decision and was 90% motivated by our financial situation after buying this place.  I started thinking about childcare immediately.  I came up with the idea of someone coming to the office and watching the girls onsite.  My mom (my boss) was cool with this and even suggested that we could have one of the training rooms set up for this purpose.  So I started looking around.  I did look at other options but I REALLY want to avoid daycare and I was nervous about dayhomes.  I also thought having them with me would make the smoothest adjustment and would most easily facilitate Brighid still nursing.  So time passed and nothing happened with the gov’t.  To this day, we are still waiting for them to announce that there is an open competition.  Yes, we are suspecting somethig fishy…

So because we are needing some additional income I was hunting around the gov’t of Albertas website looking at job training programs.  I stumbled upon their job listing site.  I started browsing and found a couple of jobs that I would be suited to.  They both seemed interesting.  They are both salaried gov’t postions (benefits!).  They both seem to have potential for advancement (something my old job doesn’t really have).  They both pay at least $5k more than my old job.  I talked things over with Rob.  I talked things over with my mom.  I applied for both jobs.

Immediately I started freakint out about childcare.  The competition for my preferred job closed yesterday (July 25) and the other ones closes tomorrow (July 27).  After they close, they go to screening, then interviews, then they hire.  I have NO IDEA how lng any of that takes, but I was anticipating potentially starting work in early August.  I have no childcare.  I started frantically searching for a dayhome since taking them to the office wasn;t really an option any more.  I looked and looked and finally broke down and posted on my AP Yahoo group.  I got contacted by this woman Crystal.  I had looked at her dayhome before.  It is my ideal.  She runs it based on the Waldorf philosophy and supports AP, breastfeeding and cloth diapering!  However, she had stated that she doesn’t take kids under 19mo, she’s closed on Fridays, and she had no spots.  Well, when she emailed me she said she would have room for both of them regardless of Brighid’s age.  I am so frickin thrilled.  I have talked to my mom and she might take the girls on Fridays (eep!!!).  So I think I have it all worked out.  She lives over by Highlands but I am willing to drive to have them go someplace I am comfortable with.  This way I will only be worried about how they are adjusting instead of how they are adjusting, what they’re being fed, how long they are in front of the TV, how they are being disciplined, etc.  We are going over on Friday to check out her place and I am giving her a deposit to hold our spots for a month.

So now I just need the job.  I am so freaking out.  I want this job so bad.  I am excited, nervous, and anxious.  It will mean so many good things for our family.  I know money is not everything and that I really wanted to be a SAHM.  However. money is the biggest stressor in our lives and I think having parents who are miserable and constantly depressed and fighting about money is going to more negatively affect the kids than being put in Crystal’s dayhome.

Ok, so there’s the whole story.  I’ll keep ya posted.

We made two trips to the fair this year.  The first was with Mom, Diamond, Vina, Steven, and Rebecca.  We went to see Robert Munsch.  He told old stories but used names from kids in the audience.  Diamond was the star of “Zoom”.  After RM we went into the Agricom to try and cool off.  We shopped and ate and changed bums then I promised Saoirse we would go have fun.  We headed outside and my mom promptly bought Saoirse and Diamond 2ft tall inflatable Dora’s.  Then her and I split tickets on all the major K Days prizes (dream home, gold brick, etc.) and then she tried to kill me and Brighid: she was trying to push Diamond’s wheelchair and my stroller.  I tried to walk around the stroller so I could push it and she moved the wheel right into my feet.  I stumbled a bit and tried to move out of her way, but then she moved the wheel into my feet again.  I went down.  Hard.  Somehow I managed to hold on to Brighid who was strapped to my front in the Beco and I took the entire impact on my knees.  It hurt.  My right leg especially.  Did I mention that the day before was my last Chiropractic adjustment before the Dr. was going on holidays for two weeks?  Anyway, I survvied and Brighid is unscathed.  My back definitely needs an adjustment now but it’s not like I can’t function.

We headed to Kidsland and bought some ride tickets.  Saoirse’s only experience with rides before this was a car in Westmount.  She wanted to sit in it so I let her.  When I put a loonie (!) in it and it started to move she started freaking out in terror.  But given her daredevilness I knew Kdays might be a whole other ballgame.  So we skipped most of the free activities because Diamond was getting antsy and we started going on rides.  Saoirse went on the carousel first and LOVED it.  She laughed and giggled and squealed in delight.  After that I was trying to find a ride that she could go on herself.  My concern was that she would decide she’d had enough and would try to get off while the ride was in motion.  I chose the cars and put her on.  I explained that she need to stay in her seat and wait until Mama came to get her when the ride was over.  She did just fine.  She also went on the ferris wheel twice, the helicopters twice and the dizzy dinosaurs.

While we were watching RM I noticed that the posted times onsite for the Backyardigans shows were different than what was on the website.  They listed a 7pm show as well.  So on Sunday after staying home all day being bored while waiting for Daddy to get home from golf, I decided that we should take a family trip back to the Ex.  As I said, Saoirse  didn;t really get to do much in Kidsland and she didn’t even get to use all her ride tickets because Diamond had had enough and was tired and wanted to go home.  So we headed to the grounds and hauled ass over to the Telus stage only to find that there was now tape over the 7pm listed show .  So we headed to Kidsland and let Saoirse have the full Ex experiece.  SHe and Daddy raced on a giant inflatible thing (twice).  She went on more rides and was even more daring.  We bought her cotton candy and mini donuts.  It was fun.  I think next year we need to buy her a day pass.

The Ex was always my FAVOURITE thing as a kid and I expect Saoirse will be the same.  Now I just need to avoid walking too close to Galaxyland ever again…

So our crazy summer has begun.  Saoirse has gymnastics on Tuesday and Thursday evenings.  I signed up for a class at the last minute on Monday and Wednesday evenings.  Both girls swim on Saturdays.  It’s too much.  I feel like I can’t do much of anything during the day because it’ll wear the girls out for the evenings.  I ended up switching Saoirse out of gymnastics for August so I can have a couple of more evenings free to study but then I’ll have a midterm anf final to study for…

Both girls are growing up very quickly.  Brighid likes solids- but ONLY if she can feed herself.  She has NO inerest in being spoonfed.  She is babbling a lot.  I have been encouraging her to say “Mamamamamama”.  She is also very good at letting us know what she wants.  This girl is going to have a temper!  If someone else is holding her and she wants me she looks right at me and whines until I take her.  Now, I’m not saying she talked, but last night Rob was holding her and she looked right at me and started saying, “Mehmehmehmeh!!!”

Saoirse is also doing well.  She’s turned into “Rewind Tomlinson”.  Whenever she does something like hurts herself or someone else by accident, she has to replay the incident and say “I do dat”: we were in 7-11 and she was walking behind Rob and not paying attention.  He stopped walking and she ended up walking into him and kicking him in the back of the leg in the process.  So she comes running up to me and says, “I do dat.  Seesha do dat.” and kicks me in the shin!  This can be a really frustratiing trait!!!