I was going to title this post with the obvious – Friday the 13th – but the words above more clearly state what my day has been like so far.
I woke up bright and… well, late for me. I’m usually up for the day at 5:30 but His Majesty (my youngest son) allowed me to sleep in ’til 6:30. Anyway, at 6:35 he turned on his laptop to find a virus. Not just any virus it seems, but one which wouldn’t allow me to do anything with the computer but shut it down and re-install Windows.
I don’t understand what the people who write and distribute these horrible worms around the internet get out of doing it. It was one of those ones that, if we can read (His Majesty can’t) we usually know better than to click on unless we’re half asleep or drunk – a pop-up with a badly drawn Windows-like shield, telling the user that the computer is at risk. Yeah, from you, dickhead. I mean seriously, do some people have nothing better to do than sit at their computers and snigger at other people’s misfortune? Ugh!
Anyway, I bought Kaspersky Pure virus protection a few months days ago, so I’ve installed it now on all the computers in the house.
I’ve finished the five courses I needed to take, so as soon as it arrives in the mail I will officially be the proud owner of a college certificate in Writing for Publication.
Then I will be able to certifiably hit the “Publish” button on WordPress!
Now all I need is a job. Anyone out there interested in hiring a slightly worn out but enthusiastic, stay-at-home mom/compulsive scribbler? I work for peanuts (preferably chocolate covered). Just ask my kids. Hell, I pay them!
I’ve had one of these every year since I was a child.
I used to be the only one in the house with one, now every year I buy four – one each for the kids,
and one for me.
I don’t know… Apart from the obvious miniscule sugar rush each morning, there’s something inherently comforting in hunting down the right number for the date, and then popping open the little door. And if you’re lucky, the chocolates didn’t all come unglued during shipping, and they’re not all sitting down at the bottom of the packaging.
So far, so good.
Blog post of December 4th, in honour of Every Damn Day December. Check it out! It’s not too late to join in!
Never a dull moment, they say. And here, in my life, it’s true.
I just walked into the room which houses my main household computer to find a hole in the wall. My autistic son has learned not to put his fist through the window, it seems. That was so two years ago. And now there is one more thing to add to the list of repairs on my house.
We’ve been through the behavioural training. I’ve been told over and over again to ignore the behaviour I don’t like and pay attention and praise the behaviour I wish to continue. But I can’t be with him all the time. This is what happens, apparently, when I ignore the yelling. Most of the time it actually works. Once in a while, I pay the consequences.
It’s an ongoing struggle. I’m sad to think that I might not always be able to take care of him on my own, but it’s a fact I have to face. He needs the influence of a man in his life – he’s eighteen years old. I don’t have one for him, and his father not only lives elsewhere, but that elsewhere is now hours away instead of across town where he lived up until this summer.
Sometimes I feel like I do nothing. I can spend hours some days, just writing. Other days I’m completely overwhelmed. Least of all is the stress of not knowing what’s coming next.
Every once in a while I come across an opinion piece in the newspaper or on the internet, stating the importance of Vitamin C in preventing and even curing illnesses. By far the most astounding account of it is this:
in which Vitamin C was apparently proven to cure leukemia in a child. The data is actually quite convincing.
I stumbled across the concept by accident years ago, when I realized that if someone else in the house had a cold, or if I felt the beginnings of one in myself, if I took at least a 1,000mg (1 gram) pill, I could avoid the cold altogether. This didn’t work, however, when we all had H1N1, but then again, according to the article, maybe I just didn’t take enough.
It seems to me that there’s enough evidence that Vitamin C works, that it brings up once again the subject of the big pharmaceutical companies having the monopoly over the market, and that doctors are perpetrating their hold on our wallets.
Nevertheless, I urge anyone who hasn’t already to try taking 500 – 1,500mg per day, in the case of the common cold. You can’t, from what I understand, overdose on Vitamin C, though it is thought best to be taken throughout the day rather than in one large dose, as anything more than is necessary for your weight and size will just go straight through.
It’s cheap and it works. On what, we have to trust the “experts.”
I read once, when my kids were very young, that a baby who laughs when it is startled is a baby who trusts his or her mother. It’s something that I found followed through to their toddler years and beyond. I joked with my kids that I was going to do horrible things with them; cook them and eat them for dinner for instance. They’d laugh, knowing I would never do such a thing, because they trusted me.
There was one instance that I will never forget and I try not to regret for the simple reason that it taught me something.
I was leaving the pool where Alex was, at the time, doing physiotherapy. He wasn’t walking yet at the time, so he must have been less than five years old. I carried him out of the building, loaded with purse, swimming clothes and Alex all in my arms. I remember it was cold. I put him down on the curb in front of the car but to the side where I could see him, so I could wrestle my car keys out of my coat pocket. Had a car come, I was prepared to stand in front of it to prevent him being hurt. I proceeded open the doors and put the bags in. Then I waved goodbye to him and pretended to get into the car, expecting him to laugh. He knew I would never leave him there by myself. But instead of laughing, he smiled at me and waved back.
Whether he didn’t understand the joke or not, the vision of that tiny little boy sitting bundled against the cold, waving goodbye to me with a trusting smile on his beautiful, innocent face, still brings a tear to my eye.
Our children live in the world we construct for them. Whether they are healthy or sick, they can learn to be happy from us as parents because they trust what they see – the example we set. Alex spent the first eight months of his life in the hospital. All he has ever known, from birth, is pain. To this day he wakes up almost every morning with reflux, trying to vomit past an operation he had at six months of age called a fundoplication – basically, a knot was tied in his esophagus to prevent anything coming up. And yet he is the happiest child I’ve ever met. Other people observe this and ask me if he’s ever unhappy. It’s all he’s ever known. He sees me deal with his morning time retching with ease and he is reassured that it’s normal.
One day I know he will find out that it’s not. Will he stop trusting me at that point? I have no idea. It’s for sure that I’ll have the task of assuring him that even if it’s not something everyone experiences, it’s just the way he is, and that’s okay.
The point I’m trying to make I suppose, is that our children are our sponges. They take from us what we show them, and whatever that is, they trust it, because from the very beginning, we are all they know. I hope, for my own part, to preserve that for as long as their personal experiences away from me will allow. And that they will continue to laugh all their lives.
I find myself saying ‘If I could only just…’ a lot.
If I could only just find more time to write…
If I could only just have more money…
If I could only just find true love…
It goes on, ad infinitum. But all these things denote that I’m not content, when for the most part, I am. I have my children here with me, we have a roof over our heads, the air inside is warmer than outside, and there is food in the fridge. And I’m keeping up with my writing quite well, although sometimes it’s a struggle to do anything else.
So what is it which makes me wish for more? Is it simply the human condition to keep striving? It’s hard, for me at least, to keep my mind from going, from wandering, and from wondering what it would be like if I had just a little more.
Now if only I could consume nothing but coffee and chocolate and wine and cheese …. then I’d be happy.
I read in the paper the other day about a man in Northern Quebec who is whining about the fact that people don’t want to bring their kids to his daycare. He advertised locally, with simply the name of his business, his address and his phone number. Parents showed up to check the place out, seemed happy, but then declined his services once they found out he would be running it and actually be the one looking after their kids.
Now, while this may, on the surface, seem like gender discrimination, the fact is that people want their young children cared for by women. It’s not a matter of ability, necessarily, but more a matter of instinct. YES, men have most of the instincts required to look after children, but many parents don’t see it that way. Then there are the stories in the news of men (what is it, 1% or less?) who have been known to abuse children in their care, in some way or another. I wish it wasn’t true, but every major city has had these stories.
The article about the daycare brought up in my memory another occupation which I found out doesn’t welcome men. At the dry cleaning business on my paper route there is a wash and fold service. They will not hire a man to do this job. It makes sense – many women wouldn’t bring their clothes, particularly their underwear, in to be washed and handled by a man. Does it make sense? No. Panties are inanimate objects. Even if the guy behind the counter is sniffing them, they don’t care. But women, like parents, are sensitive to some things.
Would you take your kids to be looked after all day by a strange man? I wouldn’t. Ladies, would you take your underwear to be washed by a strange man? …depends how strange he is.
Is it fair that men are discriminated against in these cases? Maybe not. But it makes sense.
As of today, two of my children are adults. My middle son turned 18 today.
It’s really strange for me. I know I’ve said it before, but I’m in a unique position. I can watch him shave his face, reach up to hug him because he’s so much taller than I am, and yet I bought him Lego to unwrap today – the contradiction being because he is severely autistic.
I feel sad that he isn’t like his older brother – thinking about moving in with his girlfriend. I don’t know that he’ll ever have one. But at the same time I am, very very slightly, content that for a while longer I will be able to watch over him.
Do you ever have one of those days when you want to write – you really do – but everything that comes out of you is sheer crap? I’m having one of those today.
On a happier note, I handed in what I consider another eight pages of utter drivel for my short story course today. Well, okay, maybe it’s not that bad. I hope it’s not. But I wasn’t allowed to polish it since it had to be a rough draft, so I certainly wasn’t happy with it.
It’ll at least be interesting to see if my professor sees the same things wrong with it as I do.
So unless I get a reprieve from this creative brain fart I’m having today, my NaNo wordcount is going to pot. I am so due for a weekend off – it’s been five weeks.
Maybe after 48 hours of solid sleep this weekend I’ll be back into the swing of things. Back in the saddle.
Back to being creative enough not to keep falling back on proverbs.
Or maybe I’ll feel better after a good night’s rest tonight. After all, tomorrow is another day.
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