Motherhood in Reverse

I haven’t had the most active and busy weekend, although my annual dragon boat festival races did take place.  My team did pretty well in the races and our fundraising efforts paid off nicely and we were able to make a fairly good overall donation to children’s hospital/cancer care.

We ran three races the second of which was by far our best race.  It was 3 seconds faster than our first run which is a huge difference in this type of sport.  Both race days were fairly early in the morning and so all was said and done around noon for both Saturday and Sunday.  

It being the only thing to really do it did leave a lot of free time afterward and even though our families activity level was very low key it was still a rather tiring weekend.   I’m sure it was even less exciting for my husband and both girls as they only attended the final race on Sunday seeing as it has been so difficult to get our oldest daughter around.

On Friday I told how she injured herself at soccer and it’s why we’ve had to take it easy.  It’s completely understandable of course she can’t help but have a difficult time. Crutches aren’t the easiest thing to adjust to, even having used them several times before, and a broken hip is going to be painful and hard to tolerate no matter how good the drugs you’re taking are.

And yes it is a broken hip although not an odd type of fracture for her age and it should heal fully in about 6 weeks.

It has been an odd change for us as parents though as her ever growing independence as she’s gotten older has disappeared.  She has needed help with things in the past few days she hasn’t needed help with since she became an independent and stubborn toddler. 

She can’t put on her own socks, carry her own meals to the table, pick things up of the floor or even bathe without help.  It’s as if the stage of motherhood/childhood we were in has gone into reverse and we are now back to some point around her toddler years.  The only difference is she is much better at communicating her needs than she was at 2.   

Ok maybe it’s different in other ways too but it really does evoke memories of days gone by. I’ve just found it interesting how when she gets hurt it seems to take me back to the days when she was small.  She still needs us without the injury certainly and I don’t mother less regularly it’s just the needs aren’t quite as tangible as putting on socks.  Or at least not as easily expressed.  

A New Year

I’m not a resolution kind of person, never once have I made a New Year’s resolution and I don’t feel inclined to start now.  I can’t quite subscribe to the notion that a new year requires a new me; the same one from 2011 will do just fine in 2012 thank you very much.

When New Years rolls around each year I make the choice to look back on my year and focus on the fun I’ve had, the things I’ve enjoyed and what I want to keep on doing.  I can look back on the changes I’ve made (this blog for example) that have in some way big or small made me feel better about who I am.

I think it’s a much better way to start a new year rather than looking back and berating myself on the things I should change or the negatives.  Following that train of thought it’s no wonder most resolutions fail as most of them are borne out of a negative thought and so that is where the focus lies with the negative.

Who wants to, or for that matter who can keep themselves focused on a negative? Sure there are changes I should make to better myself but do I need an arbitrary day to change them? No, tomorrow is just another day as is the day after that.  Whichever day I start to make those changes on doesn’t matter.

I try to be happy and healthy and slowly change the things I don’t like in my life, you know all that good stuff many people resolve to do each year but instead of trying to do it all at once I do it every day in little ways. 

Those little ways have a tendency to add up over the course of a year and so when I reach the end of my year I’m able to look back and focus on the positive because I know I will continue to try to improve myself every day and not just tomorrow or for the first few weeks or months but all year long.  

So I wish everyone a happy new year and would like to remind you all to take a moment at some point this New Years Eve and think on what you have accomplished this year not just on what you haven’t.  

Instant Friends

Do you want to play with me?

That’s all it takes in the world of children to make a friend. I was thinking about it after our second night at the hotel last week when both girls were bugging me to go out to the pool. They wanted to meet friends from the night before.

All they knew about each other was their names and ages, which have already been forgotten since, but having played with them for just a short time they were considered to be a friend.  Certainly these are not lasting friendships only as long as we happen to be in the same hotel or sometimes even simply the short time spent playing together just that once.

Watching one of these instant friendships blossom reminds me of just how much our perceptions change as we age. The innocence of childhood which allows for such friendships seems to get lost over the years. The ability to play with a stranger in the same way you would play with a long time friend disappears.  

I certainly wouldn’t grasp the hand of someone I met 5 minutes ago and jump into a pool together or suggest we play a game.  Perhaps it is this, our inability to play in quite the same way that prevents these instant friendships from happening.  Our idea of what makes a friend also changes, someone we will meet only a few times is not considered a friend, still a stranger or at the very most an acquaintance.

My oldest in fact wasn’t calling her playmate a friend simply “the girl I was playing with”; her idea of friendship has already begun changing just shy of her 12^th birthday.  She recognizes that someone she plays a game with isn’t the same as the kids she has known and played with for years.

For me and I’m sure for most adults those moments in which we share a few words with a stranger while waiting in a long line or commenting on something of mutual interest is perhaps all that is left of these instant friendships.  I think that these friendly moments which give us a short connection to another person are the remnants of these unique instant friendships of childhood.

A Hairy Issue



I have come to the conclusion that I have too much hair.   Seems there would be an easy solution but the thing is I have not had short hair since I was about 13 or 14 years old and there is a certain level of trepidation when it comes to the thought of cutting it.

When I last had short hair I recall that my natural curls tended to be a little bit how shall we say Pomeranian-esk and it was completely untamable.

There is absolutely no chance I would ever cut it to the point where a ponytail wouldn't be an option however I have no idea what change would work.

I've had a lifelong love hate relationship with my hair, I hate it others love it. I always have people telling me how they would love to have hair just like mine with some volume and curl. However curl means frizz and on humid days I look like I've stuck my finger in a light socket.

I've never quite figured out how to keep it from frizzing like mad.  I've got hair that naturally takes on the look of an 80's hair band. 2 decades on I think the style may have gone out.

I try to straighten it now and then, usually it takes me about a 1/2 hour unfortunatly it still tends to remain a bit of a frizz ball. Quite often after spending so much time trying to fix my hair it still ends up pulled back or clipped up.  

Another unpleasant side effect of straightening my hair is the extra couple of inches in length I get when its straight.  Invariably every single time I go to bed with straight hair my husband will at some point roll over it. 

It is a rather rude awakening and it not only pulls out a good chunk of hair but pulls my head and neck into some horribly uncomfortable angles.  It has brought me to tears more than once and does not feel good.



Imitating Cousin It

Judging by the amount of hair that gets pulled out whenever he rolls over it I won't have any hair to worry about if I continue straightening it.  I'd rather not go with that option however.

Mostly the one big thing that is making me realize it’s time for a change is my remarkable resemblance to cousin It from The Adams Family.

I don't think anyone can pull off that look and its time to figure out something new.

Friendship

I have an old song in my head from back in my days of girl guides I’m sure most people have heard it, the first verse is:

Make new friends

But keep the old

One is silver

And the other gold

I’ve been thinking about this song because my husband and I seem to have suddenly expanded the number of close friends we have as a couple yet I have a friend who has all but disappeared from my life in the past year.  She is one of my oldest and most dear friends and even though we no longer see each other often I’ve come to realize she always will be.

Each time I do speak with her it is as if no time has passed between conversations.  I’m always going to carry a special place in my heart for her no matter what.  I suspect that she may be worried I’m mad at her for not spending much time with me but I’m not. I do miss her but I understand what has happened and why. She is for the first time in her life seriously involved with someone and I’m very happy for her.  I also understand what it’s like to have a new love in your life and want to spend every waking moment with them.  I’m sure I probably did much the same to her when my husband and I first decided we wanted to be more than friends.

She is simply at a different point in her life then I am. I have the schedule and responsibility of a homeowner, wife and mother.   My life orbits around my kids and family.  We often go out with others but it is to museums, galleries, festivals, and other family oriented events. We have friends over often but again its family oriented activities, watching movies, playing games and having bonfires.  Most of the people we see regularly are married or have kids and the days of bars and partying are behind us. 

For example we throw a News years party every year.  We basically sit around playing board games, chatting and eating while the kids tear apart my basement.  We all fear the idea of a hangover the next day and so don’t drink much. Staying up past midnight is enough of a challenge never mind after a few glasses of wine.  Really I think most of us would be just as happy being in bed long before midnight we stay up because the kids have been promised permission to ring in the New Year and we can’t go to bed until they do.

That’s not the way a new couple without kids wants to spend their new years.   They don’t want to dodge a dozen children running around yelling and being their lovingly annoying selves.  They want to drink party and celebrate, then sleep in the next day.  For those at my house sleeping in the next day won’t happen and it will take us days to recover from staying up late and having had two or three drinks.

So I’ve come to realize that I haven’t really lost a friend at all we are just at different points in our lives that don’t happen to be conducive to doing a lot of the same things and spending a lot of time with one another.  I’m happy with where I am in life and I’m happy for her as long as she is happy in her life.  I’m sure at some point we will go back to spending more time together as our lives and the stages we are in continue to change. Regardless of when or if that happens I realize now that some friendships simply can’t end they are a part of our very fiber and being, and this is one of them.

Across the land

Across the sea

Friends forever

We will always be