Before...

Sometimes conversations come up about what I did before I had my kids. Last night, Ray and I were chatting with a friend who is in her mid-twenties and she asked how old I was when I had my kids.

I was in my 30s when I had both of my boys. Ray and I had been married 6 years. We'd been dating for 5 before we got married.

That's a long time to be together before children. Most people don't do that on purpose, but we did. A good chunk of that time was because we were still going to university. Once we were married, we also had job losses and gains and wanted to buy a house first. So we did.

Still, that leaves a lot of living to do before the kids came along.

I went to South Korea for about a year to teach English. It was a fun time, but also lonely and hard at times. I learned I could entertain myself, be alone, see and do things by myself, and be happy. I also learned it was more fun with someone. Ray and I had been dating for a bit less than 2 years when I left, he visited over Christmas, and then I came back to Canada and we continued our relationship.

We did a little traveling in Canada. It would have been more and further, but we also struggled financially at the time.

We bought our first car, got our first apartment together, had a roommate...and then didn't. We worked, lost jobs, and got jobs. Ray went back to school for a year.

I learned to run long distances and completed my first half marathon before my first child came. I also learned to knit (ironically, not for baby stuff, but to keep myself out of the fridge at night). I read a lot of books.

We ate out. We ate all kinds of different foods, and once even had a round of impulse eating (kind of like impulse shopping) with a friend at a fabulous Thai restaurant in St. Catherine's, Ontario. We experimented with cooking.

We went to GenCon in Milwaukee and then in Indy. We won second prize in the D&D Open Tournament. (I didn't play at all before I came back from Korea.) And we had fun. We met more people.

We made new friends and spent time with old friends.

We laughed. We laughed a lot!

We lived.

Do I regret having my children a bit later? Not a sniff. Do I miss those times? A bit, to be honest. But less every day. Best of all, I know we will have things to do and places to go when our kids are grown and doing their own things.

Is it much different now that we have the boys? This is where the irony lies: not very much. We do all of these things with the kids. We've traveled with them, gone to GenCon, see our friends, read, eat out and experiment with food, bought another house...you get the picture. It's our life together and we've introducing our boys to all of it a step at a time. It was harder when they were smaller, but as they no longer need booster chairs and diapers and playpens, it gets easier and easier. When they get older and have their own lives, I will miss having them with us, but I know that we will adjust again.

My Military Childhood

I grew up military. I lived in 7 provinces and was in Europe during the Cold War. My life involved moving and Christmases in new places and always having new friends. It meant ski vacations in Switzerland and floating in the Mediterranean in Spain one summer. It means I have seen a great deal of Canada and lots of European countries. It also inspired me to go to Asia by myself as a young adult.

But it also meant that I grew up knowing for sure what guns and bombs were. I was shipped home from school more than once because of a bomb scare. My father was gone for 2 six month stints to the Middle East before my second birthday. I grew up knowing that at any time, my father could go to war. That he could die for our country. And that at any time, I was representing our country. I knew all of that before my birthdays had added up to double digits.

I've not been part of the military community for a while now. My Dad retired and I grew up and married someone who was not military. We have lived in the same house for 7 years this month, which seems like an eternity to my gypsy soul.

But my heart is still there. I cry for the fallen soldiers -- every one -- in Afghanistan. And I am incredibly proud of each and every soldier and each veteran.

I've written about this before. My connection and my tears. But tonight I saw a video that made my breath catch in my throat, because it is all of this and more. It's part of my life and their lives: each and every soldier and family member who has been involved.

Please watch and listen closely.

Perfection

I grew up knowing that I was smart. I was told that I was smart in every way from the time I could walk and all the way through my school days. I was an adult and living on my own before I didn't have at least a weekly conversation that included one of my parents or relatives or friends telling me how smart I was.

Sounds like a great thing, doesn't it.

Except that in my world "smart" came with expectations. I was supposed to behave better than the average 7 year old (mostly, I understand that I did). I was only supposed to take academic courses...all of the academic courses in high school. My father still occasionally mentions how I did not take chemistry in high school! And did so on my graduation day from university. (Insert a deep sigh and an eye roll here.)

I was supposed to be perfect.

How does a person live with the expectation of perfection? Especially when the other message that you get is that you are failing all the time.

My father, though blessed with many wonderful traits, is not a man of patience for himself or others. And he always feels as though he is failing, thus projecting that onto his kids. If I wasn't getting marks over 80%, then I was failing. I didn't take the courses he wanted me to take, so I failed. These days, it is that I don't have a child who is female...my beautiful, smart, healthy kids are boys! (Now, if anyone were to take issue with his grandsons, there would be hell to pay! He adores them. He just wants a granddaughter too.)

It's not that these are smacks of failure. Billboards advertising it. Or out and out telling me that I have failed. More like whisperings and suggestions of other things I should have done or ought to be doing. Subtle undercurrents. You could miss them. I did for a long, long time.

What does a person do with an expectation of perfection and a whispering voice that says you are failing? How does a person dig out from under all of that to just be?

Where oh where did July go?

It seems like school ended yesterday. But in the heat and family vacation and ice cream haze, time really has passed. It's already August.

We've been to New Brunswick and PEI and back. We've had one round of swimming lessons (and Xander passed!) and are doing soccer camp. Ray and I have been busy around the house and outside: the deck is being stripped and fixed, the fireplace has its screen, and we have new shelves and bins for the toys. (I still want to know how we can work that much around here and still have a massive mess, but that's another blog post, I am sure.)

I struggle to work and to balance life with my family. I also wonder if this is the time to go back to a regular job; I suspect this might be a yearly summer time pondering.

And time passes.

We're good. I've not felt like writing a whole lot, so I have been fairly quiet in my online world. But we are motoring along and generally enjoying ourselves.

Appreciating

We've had a really good time lately with the kids. We've gone swimming. Had time hanging out. Xander is helping Ray paint our fireplace. And tonight we danced and sang our hearts out. It was magic.

The last song was the one I've put on my blog today.

In honour of the song itself and the wonderful times we are having, I am making a list of 10 things I am appreciating. Go ahead and make your own list. Pass it on!

1. My kids
2. Health
3. Laughter
4. Family
5. The sheer beauty of the earth: plants blooming, blue sky, and buckets of rain.
6. Friends
7. The many places I have been, from mountains on three continents to dipping my feet in the Pacific, the Atlantic, and even the Mediterranean.
8. Plans
9. Dreams
10. Love

Spring Clean Out

Liam is a few months past two now. When Xander was two, we knew that we wanted another baby. Liam is two and we are both more towards the no end than the yes end. But Liam has been a hard little nut to crack, in terms of food and sleep and just generally settling life out. I could change my mind, but the more I think about going back to having a tiny one and doing all of that all over again, the less inclined I am to make that journey. Only time will tell in the end, but if you are betting, my recommendation wouldn't be to bet on another child here.

So I am sorting through clothes and getting rid of the ones we are done with. I keep telling myself that they are just clothes. A few I have kept, because the memories are so strong of the moments when the kids wore them. But most of the 12 month to 18 month clothing has now gone to a new home.

The best part about this is that they've gone to our daycare provider, K. She has a little boy, Nick, who is almost a year(and he is the cutest thing...don't tell his mom that I just want to kiss his cheeks all the time!) Plus, Liam thinks that Nick is a combination of his little brother and his best friend. (Funny enough, Xander and Lexi, K's daughter who is only a few months younger than Xman, think the same thing of each other.) What I am driving at is that we are fortunate enough to have K and her family as good friends, who feel a lot like extended family. And it feels good to pass things on to them. Like just passing it through the family.

Even when you know you are over 90% sure you are done, still there are hesitations. But as I am going through and passing clothing on, I find that it feels great too. A little more space. A few less things. Somehow, it seems like clearing things out is giving my brain space to be creative and think and go forward.

Ponderings in Bits and Pieces

In the little scraps of time, between chasing boys to change diapers and clothes and harangue them into the bathtub, then working and balancing general maintenance things in life (after all, we do all need clean clothes and dishes at regular intervals), Ray and I have been talking a lot. And in the tiny silent moments, I am also contemplating a few things of my own.

I'd like a little input from all of you too.

- What two things do you do to keep yourself organized? Do you feel like you are organized? Is it an ongoing battle or something you've licked?

- Name a few of your biggest blessings right now. What are the things that make you smile?

- What do you think of or who do you think about when you hear the word tribe? Who is in your tribe? Is it big or small? Do you think there is one tribe for a person or many interlinking tribes.

I have more, but at this point I want to hear what you think and don't want to overload you.

Here are some of my answers:

I try to keep on top of dishes and laundry. If those two things are out of control, I feel like the rest is hopeless. And I intermittently keep a list of what needs doing, both today and for the week or even a master list for later/when we can get to it. It's all a work in progress and I feel like I have never quite mastered this since we had kids.

My kids and family in general are the biggest blessings. I love it when Xander gives Liam a big hug when he falls and whacks himself. It's the sweetest, tenderest thing I have ever witnessed. Ray is a good dad and a great husband; he's incredibly supportive. I've also been feeling blessed that I have a job that is flexible, so I can be with my family and juggle my priorities. Work is important to me and my self-identification, but it is not the most important thing. I really straddle two worlds, but wouldn't change that. But I have been feeling blessed that I have such a love of reading and people and just generally want to see and do things. And Spring is started in our neck of the woods...there are no words that can encompass how thrilled I am about that.

Originally, when I hear the word tribe, I think about Africa and families or communities there. But when I let go of that notion a little, I realized we all live in tribes. Or in my estimation, we do. My immediate and extended family are a tribe. We have a neighbourhood and friends who extend that tribe. And globally, I have a tribe. Even my online groups have become part of my tribe. I tend to visualize this as many interconnecting smaller tribes, which contribute to my whole tribe, but because I have people in one tribe who are not part of each other's lives, I don't think it is necessarily one tribe. I'm still working on this idea.

So, give a whack at one or all of these questions. If you do it here, I can read and respond to the comments. If you want to link to your own blog and put your answers there, I will follow and try to respond there too. You too are part of my tribe...let's have a conversation!

The Fragments of My Life

These days I don't think about my life as being fragmented, because I have lived in one house for 6 years and have my kids, work, and general life there. We have friends all over the place, but I don't ponder that part much. The thing is that I grew up an army child. I've mentioned it on here before, but I think only once in passing. There was a time where the concept of a home was so foreign to me and I struggled with that regularly. Where and what was home. But time has passed and Ray and I have created our own home. Which is nice.

I'm sitting a 24 hour drive away from my home right now at a friend's house. Ironically, my parents are about 2.5 hours away from me right now. And one of the houses I grew up in is 10 minutes away. If that.

I came to Manitoba to be with my friend Kim for her mother's funeral. It's fantastic being with her. Though I wish that the circumstances of my visit were different. Over the last few days I have seen old friends, some from way back and some from a bit back. And being here makes me think about being fragmented.

Part of me misses the big winds and beautiful open skies here. I miss my friends here. The life I lived on the Prairies for 6 years. And I go back further and know that there are other lives I have had in other places. When you move like that you really create a life in each and every place. You have to. You cannot go through life moving like that and pretend you are visiting for 2 to 4 years. You make a life. You connect with the people in your life.

The thing is that no matter how you move on and when you go back, those places and people are a part of you. And for me, having so many people and places means that my life is fragmented. And I cannot choose. So there are pieces of me scattered.

Tomorrow I am going back to the life we've created. I can't wait to be with my husband and hug my children! I am mostly there, but I will miss the life here on the Prairies that I am leaving behind.

Little Bits of Busy

Last Sunday we were out and about. We had a chance to visit with Kate, our old babysitter (who had the nerve to grow up and go off to university!) at her place. She's in the center, holding Liam.


On Tuesday, Liam was having a grand time eating spaghetti. I am not sure who won that encounter when I look at his face, but it took him an hour to play...um, I mean eat it. And he was happy!

I'm discovering that sometimes I am *that* mother. Tuesday afternoon, Ray came home to find the three of us sitting on the tile, surrounded by purple goo, eating popsicles. It was supposed to just be Xander and I, but I offered a lick to Liam and then he wouldn't let go.
And look what I found my little monkey doing this morning!

Family

My husband and I have long had conversations about the definition of family.

There is a narrow view out there that "family" is a group of people you share blood with in some way.

I grew up in the military community. We had an extensive family in Ontario, but no one in the military, and often for years on end, we didn't even see our extended family. It was just the four of us. A small family. Or so it would seem. But we have a tendency to pick up strays along the way. People just become a part of our family, no blood required.

My husband's immediate family was also four, with a series of aunts and uncles, half-aunts, and a step aunt, plus cousins too numerous to even name. I know I haven't met half of them yet. (I have met the important ones though!)

As we've grown, our immediate family has changed; now we've added our own friends to our extended network of family. Our sons have one first cousin, plus a couple of second cousins (or is it second cousins, once removed?), but they have an extra handful of "aunts" and "uncles" who are equally important to our sense of family. Friends who are there for us and for them and who share our days and weeks, our ups and downs, and who are part of this evolving family we are making.

Sadly, some of our actual family members have become absent too. We miss them.

I know other people go through these things too. All I can say is that we all have family we are born to and family we choose.

I am so grateful for the family that Ray and I have chosen. We look around and talk about this frequently, amazed and humbled.