There wasn't enough room.

On the profile, my resonse to the random question was typically, too lengthy for the space allowed. Not unusual for me, so I thought I'd provide it in full here:

The question was/is:
Your people want to make a statue in your honor. What will it be made out of and what victory will it commemorate?

My answer was/is:
My statue would be a soft-sculpture. It would be made of the bits and pieces of things that have upholstered my life - everything from the pile that I used to pick out of that huge stuffed dog my dad won at the dime toss at the fair (I plucked at it when watching copius amounts of tv as a kid and my mom thought it was shedding and I watched her bring it to the curb one garbage day as the school bus was pulling away) to the real dog hairs that have strayed onto every piece of clothing I've ever owned. It would have cashmere sweaters over it, and it would lay on flannel sheets and it would be moist in spots from tears and my daughter's drool. It would smell like my husband dressed up to go out one evening - or maybe coming home from one. It would commemorate the small victories of every day accomplishments - from the day I realized I was always going to be a lonely kid, to the days when I made it through all my dad's accidents and illnesses, to the day I found my true love, to the day I found my dog's love, to the day I found my happy place - when my daughter was born. And even today, when I decided that my life is worth recording.

I'm very glad that question was aaked of me today. Because I do believe that I deserve a statue in my honor; and I can state that I believe there are small victories every day that I need to be reminded of. The short answer just doesn't do it. Maybe I should re-visit this question from time to time.

Testing. Myself.

So this is how it starts. One minute I'm reading yet another blog with Josephine sleeping on my lap, the next I'm clicking that button that enables me to type this.

There are already so many other things that need doing, and I've got my back to them all with Josephine between the keybord and my guts and Beauty snoozing in view out of the corner of my eye.

It's started then. I just have do decide which direction to go in first. But I've made a baby step, and that's what it's all about these days.

I'm going to go and explore a little, and come back after I've found my way. I have to look around for a few things, inside and out. In this house we say, "When you can't find something, it's usually under the dog"; but since in this case it's most definitely not, I've got some work to do.

In sickness and in health...

It is amazing how a touch of sneezing, dripping and snuffling from an eight month old baby can turn an entire household upside down.

Josephine had a little virus, which got a little worse on Tuesday then cleared up on its own pretty quickly with a little Dimetapp and a lot of saline, suctioning and screaming, got passed on to me by the end of the day.

Whereupon, it turned into a Wednesday and Thursday full of sneezing, snuffling, coughing, wheezing and aching - a virus confirmed yesterday morning by the doctor to have been accessorized by an ear infection, throat infection, and upper respiratory infection requiring penicillin, an inhaler, a dairy free diet and bed rest; oh, and with an order to get lung x-rays if I don't stop wheezing by Tuesday. Josephine only got perkier and more active as she felt better, practically levitating herself to the kitchen to get some salt to rub into my wounds after she worked on using her best high pitched whiny noises to saw through my last nerve. Of course, this happens to be on the two days this week Steve was booked to work - not the three days he had off.

So it's no surprise that this morning, a sunny, enjoyable WEEKEND morning, Steve is exhibiting the same early symptoms as I had, despite our careful attention to disinfecting and avoiding contamination. While I feel better, I can only compare that to how good a crushed person feels after the load is lifted off, meaning that I know it's going to get better, but I still feel pretty awful. While all we want to do is drink a boxful of Neo Citron and crawl under the covers (not that it was ever an option for me), Josephine has decided to let us know exactly how good she feels by working on her mobility and only sleeping long enough to store up enough energy for the next round of mess and destruction.

Our house has been devastated by something the size of a molecule (is that how big viruses are? I should look it up.), and I can't foresee recovering from it anytime soon. Steve, who can self-medicate and sleep it off will perhaps recover by the end of the weekend - if he doesn't copy me by collecting some spectacular secondary infections; and I was advised it'll take seven to ten days before I'm feeling a hundred percent. Josephine, who is more than fine, will use this opportunity of our laxness and weakness to wreak havoc with her toys, spread Cheerios further afield, and to pull things off the coffee table - especially those delicious used Kleenexes, which the dog can't resist shredding.

Due to the squalor and lethargy I find myself wallowing in, it's taking every thing in me to ignore my messy surroundings, feel better, help Steve get through his bout with this illness, and to try to be a nice, kind, patient mommy who still wants to play peek-a-boo in between bouts of coughing up lung steaks.

Having a child means you can never be sick the way you used to be again. The next time you have a cold, and are in bed in sweats with a cheesy magazine and have only enough mental energy to watch The Price Is Right THANK YOUR LUCKY STARS that you can eat your hot crappy Lipton Cup o' Soup without worry of scalding the light of your life and can blow your nose as loud as you want without waking up the little darling that just fell asleep after three hours of incessant activity. Even a stranger will make a polite, sympathetic comment that might mention a hope that you feel better soon. Your own baby has no idea, couldn't care less, and will not sacrifice her own demands in the face of your own devastating illness.

Another charming view of Parenthood from
Typhoid Marla

A siren to my soul.

Saturday was a wonderful morning for us. It’s usually a nice day all around, but last week it was like the world put on a show for us. Usually, we try to sleep in a bit, then Steve takes Josie for a walk to get the paper and I feed Beauty and Homey and make lattes, then we read in bed for a few hours. This past week, I woke up early and felt like getting Josie out so that Steve could do a few things and I could get a few things for the brunch. So I set up Josie in the stroller early in the morning, and had a walk through the neighbourhood. All along Queen street, the antique shops were opening and since I know most of them through work, we had greetings from everyone. “Good morning Josephine!” “There she is!” “Hi you two!”. Smiles from strangers, too, because Josie is very charming on her walks. She holds her feet up and babbles at them, and smiles at everyone and says “OOH!” when something interests her, and shows her Cheerios all around. So it was already a sunny and pleasant day, and that made it feel like a movie set. When we got to the park at the corner of Queen and Jones, which we used to call Needle park but is much better since it was renovated this past summer, the shade near the baby swings was just perfect for a few giggly swings. But as we walked the rest of the way through the park, I noticed how surreally beautiful it was. A Buddhist monk was playing in the sand with a small child. Two elderly Asian men were riding on the teeter-totter. A group of elderly Asian women were doing their Tai Chi, and they moved like poetry. At one point, they were doing the walking backwards in converging circles part and it looked like a ballet. One woman was pushing her son on the swings, and their grandma was swinging next to them. Everyone smiled at us in welcome, and I was so happy that it wasn’t like I was intruding on their secret early morning world. After a few swings, we left and an older black man in a very proper suit and fedora sitting on a park bench tipped his hat to Josephine and said “Good morning little lady”. At the stop light, a burly biker on a Harley (there’s a Hell’s Angels clubhouse a few blocks away from us) was blasting Patsy Cline’s “I Cried All the Way to the Altar” on his radio and singing, and when I joined in, he saluted us and waggled his fingers at Josephine. At the store which was just opening, all the employees were stocking the shelves and mopping the floors and Josephine was babbling so loud that it echoed because the store was empty, and the clerks from aisles away were “ba ba ba”-ing back at her. We got the paper and stopped at the thrift store and found red cord overalls for Josie from Baby Gap for $2.99 and a really pretty blue long sleeved tee for me, both brand-new. We came home and had the rest of our day with Steve as usual, but I was enamoured of the city once again. I’m not saying that all that couldn’t have happened elsewhere, but it made me grateful to be in our neigbourhood. Those same Asian people I’ll probably curse later this week when they totter along the sidewalk with no regard for anyone who wants to pass them, and later that day the park was full of the usual trashy kids – but that morning, it was great to feel like I live not just in a house, but in a community within a city that supports a diverse culture and has romantic elements if you just keep your eyes open. Being a pedestrian during the off-hours means entering another world entirely. It’s too easy to be busy or to drive past it. It was like a little gift of the feeling of being connected. And actually, we’ve had a few times that have captured the feeling of last Saturday morning, but it was nice to be reminded. There was a line from a Paul Mark and the VanDorens song that I ‘ve always loved that used to sum me and Steve up - “I come from a long line of late night walkers. Flashing neon is a siren to my soul.” I get that same feeling about any walk through the city – I wouldn’t feel at home unless I could stand in one place see both a green little park with kids playing and a bunch of giant buildings seething with activity glinting in the sun.