Turns out you can choose your family … well on Facebook any way. 

Today I made the choice to finally take one of my sisters off my Facebook.  Biologically, I have three sisters and one brother.  All of them are significantly older than me.  I really only communicate with one of my sisters and my brother.  The other two … well … I don’t at all.  One sister waited until hours before I was to put my family on an airplane nearly three years ago to say the words …. “You can’t stay at my house with out my being here.  I don’t know you, I don’t know who you are!” and that was not all that was said, but those words right there STILL cut me to the core in my heart even now, nearly three years later.  Some welcome home, let me embrace my niece I haven’t seen in over four years and please let me love on the new niece and nephew that I have not yet met because they were born in another country and were several thousand miles away from me.  It has been said to me more than once over the past 2 1/2 years that those may not have been that sisters words, but the words of someone else.  Regardless of whose words they are, she said them.  And I have not heard anything from her since I hung up the phone all those years ago.  Not even an email saying hello and talking to me as if nothing happened.  But that’s her loss because I am one incredible sister and she is missing out on the the love of three incredible children.  Yes I have chosen this to a degree, but the crux of that conversation was that she was mad at me because I lived MY life, according to MY wants and needs and not HER direction.  That’s why I took her off my Facebook … 2 1/2 years ago.

Now the other sister I don’t talk to  …. only recently I took her off my Facebook because she had nothing, not one thing positive to say to me ~ about ANYTHING!  The one Sister I do speak with, said she was talking to that other one and was asked by her, “why does (Insane Mother of Three) keep deleting my comments on Facebook?”  Okay, why not ask me?  Why not pick up the phone and ask the horses mouth?  She has my email address, why not send me an email?  Facebook allows you to send messages to people both on and off your friends list.  So once again, another means to contact me, but no.  That might require eating humble pie.  That might require facing the really REALLY horrible sh*t in your life.

I’m not saying that people can not say difficult things to me, but if there is no balance, why do I need to keep a negative, draining, negative, agghhkkkk influence in my life?  Yes of course we all want only the positive, rays of sunshine, everything’s happy people in our lives, but we all know that just doesn’t happen.  In to our lives some shadow must fall.  I’m okay with that.  I’m okay with sometimes hearing the necessary truth, even when its really hard to take.  But for my life and that of my children, I am not going to just sit by and let that type of person in my life, over take my life.  I’m big enough and ugly enough to raise my children as I see fit, stand on my own two God given and strengthened legs and feet, and I will choose who is in my life and why.  The fact that you are related to me by blood, that doesn’t matter.  I will choose my sisters and they will be sisters that bring balance to the table.  They will be the ones who praise my accomplishments, remind me of my truths, wipe my tears when I cry, and hold me up when I can’t stand.  And they will love me for who I am and the balance I bring to their lives.

I have to give thanks to Winsome01 for taking me on a very rare night away from the Monsters for my birthday.  We went to the Delta Lodges Kanaskis for the evening. And while it was Family Day weekend and the place was crawling with kids … they were not mine!  I got to watch all the other parents dealing with children and for a change, it wasn’t me!  It was a really nice break and while it was incredibly short, it was too long at the same time. 

Thank you Winsome01 for a great evening.  And totally treating me like a princess …

 ­­

Here we are once again, IT’S MY BIRTHDAY!  And yes, I’m 25 ~ AGAIN!

I remember a TV commercial for anti again skin care and I think it was Jane Fonda who said, “I don’t plan to grow old gracefully, I’m going to fight it every step of the way”.  In my head, thats my motto. 

While it might not be the thought process the advertisers anticipated, I have always thought that about my own life.  I am going to try to live it to the fullest!  Some call me immature, I prefer to think of it as young at heart!  I laugh with my children.  I enjoy what I do and look forward to doing new and exciting things with each coming year!

So there you have it folks!  I’m old enough to know better, young enough to do it again and hopefully wise enough to not make the same mistakes twice!

Oddly enough as it happens I was born on a Sunday …

“And the child that is born on the Sabbath day
Is bonny and blithe, and good, and gay.”

… and then there are moments like these …

If you ever have an opportunity to go and see this production, DO IT!  I went with the Monsters before Christmas, and they had a BLAASST! But it was so much fun on an adult level too.  We really had a great time, the theatre was beautiful and the cast was terrific.  Healthy Weighty Wee Man even sat still for the entire production!

After much explaining to Healthy Weighty Wee Man on the way to the theatre, that we were going to see a real life Cat in the Hat and it was not our neighbour and no Mummy wouldn’t be going as Thing 2 this time.  You see at Halloween, I dressed up as Thing 2 with my friends and neighbours to go to a fancy dress party.  Once the show started, HWWM looked at me and whispered, “Mummy, this is NOT Cat in the Hat! This is Horton Hears a Who!” 

On Sunday afternoon I hit my head on the ice while (standing still) ice skating with my son.  I not only got a nasty grade two concussion, I also got a lump and a headache that hurts like an arthritic trapeze acrobat that missed not only the trapeze, but the safety net on the way down.  Yeh. That much.  I have spent the better part of a day and a half baked on Percocet, and that still didn’t take the pain away.  Yeah not fun.  Yes, I’ll wear my helmet next time.

What has really struck me is that when I walk passed a mirror (because you know my house is just filled with mirrors everywhere) or relfective surface, I do not have a black eye, busted lip, swollen nose and/or other various bruises, bumps or scrapes.  That was what I saw when I had headaches like that in the past, although admittedly they were never AS BAD as it is today.  Very close, but still.  I am not sure if I am horrified that I almost expect to see that person looking at me or that I should so vividly remember what she looked like. 

Its times like this I am torn about how to feel about these reminders.  Its not like this is a wonderful reminder of what I have achieved in life and how great it is.  Its a reminder of the dark days of my marriage.  The days I would really rather forget, not only for my own sanity, but for that of my children.  They need to know what is acceptable, but they also don’t need to remember those days either.

 It was over 17 months ago that I saw that face look at me.  And that will be the last time.

For all of those who do believe (not that I’m saying I dont!) may your day be filled with the love of those around you and may it flow through your life the rest of the year long.

and why regardless of your age, you should wear a helmet when skating.

Our day started out fairly normal for a Sunday morning.  Well a Sunday morning lately.  Oldest Large Child had a soccer training, for which we were late and it wasn’t completely Wee Blonde Child’s fault, nor was it completely OLC’s fault either.  But because OLC was dragging her feet too, I made her stay and train with B team (OLC plays on a C team because its her first year playing).  Our plans later in the day included going to a party for one of our previous dayhome kids and friend.  But I still had to get a gift for Wee Small Man, as he is affectionately called in our house, so off to the shops went Healthy Weighty Wee Man, Wee Blonde Child and me.  It was an excerice in patience for me.  Really one would think that I would know by now, avoiding taking those two shopping.

After academy we went home to get ready for the party at the Lake.  As my monsters seem to be more in to skating than sledding we brought our skates.  It was a great time and as always J & G put out a great spread.  We did some skating, others did some sledding. J brought a couple sleds and was trying to entice people in to doing some racing, all good natured of course! (that’s a laugh as J is really REALLY competitive ~ but we love her anyway!)

So while Oldest Large Child and Wee Blonde Child are off sledding with J, I was skating with Healthy Weighty Wee Man.  We were spinning and stopping and generally messing about on the ice and have a great five year old time.  HWWM was of course wearing his helmet and using the skate trainer as he is not all that stready on his feet just yet.  While messing about I did think to my self that I should really not be messing as I was skating really REALLY aggressively, wearing figure skates and no helmet.  The perfect combination for an accident of some kind and it was not so long ago that I hyper extended my elbow messing about with the kids on the ice and fell.

HWWM decided to go sit down on the benches around the fire place in the middle of the skating rink and I skate up to him.  Stopped.  Stood for about a minute (yes mother this does happen, I can stand still now!) and then the next thing I know, my head is litterally bouncing off the ice and my skates are in the air.  I hit my head so hard, I think I saw all the angels in the trees. Thank God it is winter and winter in Calgary means snow on the ground.  Once I was able to sit up again, the first thing I did was make my way over to get a handful of snow and tenderly place it on the back of my head.  I think half of the first handful went down my back. 

The lump, which would later be referred to as my siamese twin trying to get out of my head, started out really quite small.  About the size of a real goose egg.  After helping G & J clean up after the party and heading home, I pop a couple Tylenol (after calling my mom to make sure I could do so safely) after a couple more hours, the pain is not subsiding.  At all.  And while I had continued to ice (okay snow) my head, the lump had gotten bigger.  Now being me, I went to the internet to find out different treatments for a concussion and if I should be seeking urgent medical treatment.  And you know what?  No?  Well I’ll tell you what.  There are no two websites that gave the same five major signs to seek medical treatment after a bang to the head.  So I called Health Link.  Although hindsight, everytime I have called Health Link all I was told was to go see a doctor.

So a babysitter was got for the monsters and Winsome01 came to my rescue and drove me the three minutes from my house to Urgent Care to get my head looked at.  Which was really exceptional because he lives on the other side of the city from me.   But I didn’t trust myself to drive or walk even that far.  And I knew that W01 would be a calm person to have with me.  The last thing I want is someone freaking out while I’m trying not to.

After poking and prodding by the Doctor, I was told I got a lovely grade two concussion, given some really strong painkillers and sent on my way with the warning that my head was going to hurt worse before it got better.  I got a bigger tongue lashing from Winsome01 for not wearing my helmet than I did from the nurses and doctors that all came to check out my head.

Now … how do I lay down to go to sleep when my head hurts to touch it?

I’m not so fussed, but she loves them!