This is not a gratitude post

I feel so alone this morning. I can’t get either teen out of bed. I am worried that they will fail their year of school. I am worried that this is my fault because I can’t do any better.

Dance studio

Just a quick moment today. Molly decided to wear her pride flag to the dance studio yesterday and was feeling a little self conscious about it. When we went into Hanaa’s class, her teacher said “love the pride flag” and gave her a high five.

So, thanks Mr. Ty. You gave my kid a much needed boost today. And you showed the dance parents how it’s done.

shopping

This weekend's bright spot was a trip to the mall. Weird right? I hate the mall.

One source of tension this year has been Molly needing clothes but not wanting to shop, with me in particular, although she is not much of a shopper in general. We have had good luck with clothes trades in the past, but sometimes you just a few new things to fill out the wardrobe.

I had to drive Noah to the mall to meet his girlfriend (!?!!?), and the girls came along because we needed a present for an upcoming birthday party. I don't know why I'm explaining why we were at the mall, except perhaps to say that it is a rare occurrence and was a plan made at the last minute.

After we gave Noah a head start so he could enjoy his date without his mom and siblings following him and after buying the birthday present and some Starbucks, we went to Sephora to buy eyeliner for Molly to wear in her play this coming week. That was a lot of fun, trying different things. Hanaa drew a picture on her hand with lipstick and eye shadow.

Then we headed to Old Navy to get Molly some shorts. We looked through the girls' and women's sections with no luck. Everything was too short. We tried the men's department, and (predictably) everything was too big. On to the boys' department where we found the perfect shorts, hurray! I also hastily grabbed some sports bras for her to try at the same time. I didn't say too much about them, but clearly she needed some as she took them with her into the change room. We left the store with some much needed additions to Molly's wardrobe with a minimum of tension and strife.

If I had tried to make a plan with Molly to go clothes shopping, I don't think it would have turned out as well as it did. I love that Molly has her own sense of style, and I love that she doesn't let the gendered departments in clothing stores keep her from finding items that work for her.

Gratitude

So, things are kind of crappy right now. I was really looking forward to being on leave and doing some volunteer work and thinking about future career moves. Needless to say, this has not happened. I will not get into the specifics here to protect my family's privacy (such as it is).

We are looking for a therapist for one of the kids, and honestly have been hitting some pretty hard brick walls and dead ends. While the therapists haven't worked out, and the kid is not willing to take their advice, I am going to start taking some of the advice that was offered, because it makes sense to me if not to the kid.

One thing that was suggested was a gratitude journal. So, this blog is going to become that for a little while. I need to find those bright moments and record them, because there just seem to be so many dark moments right now. Make sense? Not trying to ignore the problems (though it is tempting), just trying to find a little joy to fuel the journey.

I will start with a moment from yesterday. Hanaa FINALLY had a good time at her tap class. She has been attending since September and has not come out of there happy once in all that time. We have had tears, frowns, and some disastrous attempts at bribery with skittles. I have begged her to quit. "This is not making you happy", I would say again and again, "maybe we should just give up" -- to no avail. She would show up every week, get through the warm up and some floor work with a smile, and then just lose her confidence and sparkle when they were working on trickier steps or the year-end piece.

Last week, I was a little relieved that there was no room in the "viewers gallery" and didn't watch the class. She seemed to do better. This week I thought I would repeat that, but Hanaa called me on it at their first water break, so I went back and sat in the gallery. They were practicing their dance for the recital, and Hanaa was all over it after months of shrugging through it with no enthusiasm or hiding in a corner. She was her sassy, confident self, complete with jazz hands.

At the end of the class, she looked at me and said, "and that's why I didn't quit". Amazing.

taken 'em when you can get 'em

I had a great day yesterday.

Our schedule has been so insane this year that  we are thinking about buying a second car---something I really don't want to do, but I have to admit that it would make life a lot easier, give Marc and I that tiny bit of breathing room that makes life worth living.

So, yesterday was once again full of plans. Molly had an 8am soccer game, then a birthday party in the evening. Noah also had evening plans and needed a ride (20 minutes away), and Marc was running a moonlit half-marathon in the snow.

The first pleasant surprise was that Marc took Molly to soccer (instead of going to triathlon training as usual on Saturday). That left me free to do a little yoga in the morning.

Later in the day I took Molly shopping for a gift for her friend. It was nice to have one-on-one time with her. We browsed at the bookstore, looked around in Winners and ate fro-yo.

Seeing as everyone else had evening plans and Hanaa and I were relegated to taxi and tag-along duty, I decided we should go out for dinner. She dressed up.

After Molly's party, we had to go pick up Noah. We decided to take the dog along. Noah got in the car and decided to play Hamilton on his phone, so the whole ride home was one big sing-along.

The kids went to bed, and Marc and I stayed up and watched Stranger Things (with adult beverages).

Lovely.

Today, however, I tried for a repeat of the yoga. It was the most un-peaceful 30 minutes ever. The girls fought, loudly. There were tears, name calling, recrimination, and screams.

Sigh.

the commute OR a funny thing happened on my way to or from work today

Those who know me will know that I commute to work by bicycle three times a week (less if it's raining). Cycling in Winnipeg is not a risk-free endeavour, and there have been a number of close calls. I like to catalogue the things I've found in the bike that shouldn't be there and count the number of damaged "protective" posts along the bike lane on Pembina. My pet peaves include people who pick up their kids in the bike lane outside Kelvin high-school and people who don't signal that they are making a right turn through a bike lane. I think overall things are getting better for bicycle commuters out there (and lots of people are working hard to make that happen), but there is still a long way to go. I am curious to find out what they teach in driver's ed. about driving around cyclists.

The story I want to write for you today is about none of the above. Yesterday, I biked part way to work, then loaded my bike onto the rack on the front of a bus. It was windy, and I had been sick, but I wanted to ride at least a little. The commute to work was fairly uneventful, though the bus driver didn't know his bus had a rack and gave me a weird look when I stepped in front of the bus with my bike.

When I unlocked my bike at the end of the day, I noticed that the brake cable for the rear brake was loose, and, upon further investigation, it was so loose that the rear brake did not work at all. My first instinct was panic "how will I get home"?, then paranoia "was this done on purpose? to kill me?", then suspicion "was someone trying to steal my bike?", followed  (finally) by common sense "maybe it came loose while I was unloading from the bike or rack or possibly another cyclist had parked beside me earlier, and it got caught".

Whatever the cause, I was proud that I was able to fix it by comparing it to other bicycles around me, and after about 5 minutes I was on my way. It may be time to take a course on bicycle maintenance. Maybe there's something the kids and I can do together.

Hecla 2017

This is the year we took the dog to Hecla.

Marc and I have yet to decide whether the above sentence should read "this is the FIRST year we took the dog to Hecla" or "this is the ONLY year we took the dog to Hecla".

Our dog is not well behaved. She's not aggressive, and she likes to play with other dogs, but she will bark at you if you invade her territory, and she will keep barking if she decides she doesn't like you.  So it was with great fear and trepidation that we undertook the yearly Hecla trip with the dog in tow.

The kids were all for it. "Jadie NEEDS to come", they insisted. "There is a BEACH for DOGS there." (And there is a lovely dog-friendly swimming area called Sunset Beach. It's not quite as sandy as the main---dog free---beach, but it's not bad at all.)

The first two days were bliss. We brought a short tie-out for her, and she hung out with us outside the cabin. She mostly napped on the ramp up to the cabin, and didn't seem to be bothered by the neighbours' comings and goings. We took her for long walks and introduced her to the joys of fetching a stick thrown into a lake. She actually shook off her collar and lost it in the lake, so we bought her a new one at the store in the village. It was not the greatest collar, but it seemed to work just fine.

Then our neighbours moved out, and we got new neighbours. They were very friendly and outgoing (a little too friendly and outgoing for a couple of introverts and their kids). Anyhoo, they wanted to meet the dog, and she took an immediate dislike to them (mostly to the man, but she would bark at the woman too). So every time they came outside, Jadie would bark. We were apologetic and would take the dog inside, and they were all smiles. So, we thought, this is not ideal, but we are managing.

Then one day, the dog snapped her new collar while running towards the neighbours. We immediately tackled her and took her inside where she remained until I bought her a new one in Arborg (about an hour away), as we had already purchased the last one in the village. Still, the neighbours were all smiles, and we were all apologies. We went to the main beach later (taking turns swimming with the kids and walking the dog). We saw the neighbours various places that afternoon. We all smiled and waved, and to be honest, Marc and I smiled and waved more than we are inclined to, probably just to make up for the dog.

At suppertime that evening, we came upon the solution that Jadie would stay in the cabin most of the time, so that the neighbours could come and go in peace. I was feeling good about our problem solving. It seemed to be working. We still took her on lots of walks and swims, and she was happy enough to snooze inside.

Then the park ranger arrived saying that there had been a complaint lodged against us regarding the dog. She warned us that we could be charged for excessive noise, and that we needed to keep our dog on a leash at all times. I feel petty writing this here, but I was so angry! Instead of having a conversation with us about it and try to come up with  solution, they decided the best thing to do would be to get us in trouble and hopefully kicked out. We reassured the ranger that all would be well. The dog barked at her once before we got her quiet, and we saw the ranger a couple of times over the following days, and the dog didn't make a sound (good puppy!). Suffice it to say the smiling and waving to the neighbours stopped rather abruptly.

Having the dog with us was a little limiting in some ways. We couldn't all go bike riding together, and we couldn't go to pizza night at Integrity Foods (a yearly tradition). We had been in the habit of going to Gimli for lunch on the way home, and wasn't in the cards as well. I'm hoping as she gets older and better trained, we will be able to do some of these things again.

So, plans for the fall-winter-spring include some obedience training. Plans for next summer include trying to get Jadie to ride in a canoe.