On My Own

Got up at 5am to take all my boys to the airport. Little children are not happy campers when they're woken up that early.

Justin was being cranky and obnoxious and at one point one of us asked him, "What's the matter with you?!" kind of exasperated, and got back a very soft, "I'm going to miss Mama."

Oh, damn. I may have mentioned this before, but while tantrums and rages generally leave me unmoved, tears and a little brave face completely do me in. So we had to stop everything for a little while and just cuddle, and talk about how he would be doing lots of fun things with grandparents and uncles and aunts in Calgary, and we'd talk on the phone every day, and and and. And he finally smiled and was able to continue getting dressed.

So now they've gone off, and I got a message on the machine from Daniel telling me they made it to Toronto and were about to board the plane for Calgary. Justin wanted to leave a message too, but didn't want to get off the phone - he was somewhat unclear on the concept of "leaving a message", and wanted to wait until I came on the phone in person.

I'm quite surprised at how nervous I am about them going off without me. I've been on planes all my life; I'm well aware that planes are seven times as safe as cars and all that reassuring stuff. But somehow sending all of my offspring and my partner off on a plane without me is sending my anxiety level up rather high. For me, anyway. I don't know if the high terror alert this New Years has anything to do with it, or whether worrying about other close relatives is affecting me, or what. Probably not - I've been feeling queasy about this for a while now. I'm really looking forward to getting a call saying they're safe in Calgary.


In any case. They're gone for the next 8 days, and I have a more open agenda before me than I have had in a long time. I'll probably spend a lot of my time with my mom, but for the time I'm alone at home... I haven't had more than a day to myself in years. I don't know what I'm going to do.

I do have a wishlist, though:
( Cut for sheer banality )

memememe - 2003 in Fic-Review and Musicals

A while ago, I saw a ficmeme that simultaneously attracted and repelled me, the "what's my recurring theme" meme.

A big part of me wanted to do it. A much bigger part of me reminded the curious part of me of a book called Small World. One of the characters in the book was a renowned author who had tried out a new "literary analysis" computer program. The program was supposed to digest an author's works and come up with a profile of the author's writing - eg. length of paragraphs, frequency of dialogue, stats on most commonly used words, etc.

The program informed him that his most frequently used descriptive word was "grease" and its related words. Greasy. Greaselike. Greased. Greasily.

The author never wrote another word. And simultaneously became impotent.

So. No Recurring Themes meme for me. I take my hat off to you braver folks out there who asked and were answered, and I hope the answers were helpful and not inhibiting.

However, I've read no books cautioning me against doing a "year in fic review" meme, or a musicals meme. So:

( 2003 in fic )

( musicals meme, AKA The Hills Are Alive With All That Jazz )

Little guy away from home

While I was busily meme-ing, I got a call from Chris. It seems Justin had been quite happy in Calgary, but then suddenly appeared near Chris with his eyes a little red and his face very downcast. Apparently he had finally realized that no, Mama really wasn't there. And wasn't going to be there. He wasn't crying, but was quite sad.

So Chris called, and asked me to talk to him for a little while. Which is not as easy as it sounds - Justin doesn't really understand that I can't see him, for one thing, so for example when he told me he was eating a sandwich and I asked him what type, he told me, "This one."

"What kind of sandwich is that, sweetie?"

"Did you see it? I showed you!"

Anyway, we chatted for a little while, talking about how to not feel so sad in Calgary. I pointed out that he was with lots of his family - even if I wasn't there, and he couldn't drink his own milk (?), or sleep in his own bed. Reminded him that he would be home in a few days, and that we could talk on the phone every night.

Then he asked me to tell him a story. "But not a true story," he specified.

"You mean, like a bedtime story?"

"Yeah!"

"One you already know, or a new one?"

"A new one!"

Uh... well, the phone had an annoying buzz that Justin had asked about earlier, so I decided to make a story out of that. Told him about this phone that buzzed all the time, until one day a phone repair lady came and took it apart with her screwdriver, and found a nice little bug family living in there, told them they had to leave because they were annoying everyone, and gave them an old broken phone to live in instead. And everybody lived happily ever after.

I guess he liked it, because he was a lot happier after that. Then Chris told him he had to say goodbye, and he cheerfully said "Bye Mama! Daddy, there's a bug in the phone!!"

I may have to explain that one to Chris later.

10-9-8-7-etc

It's kind of weird. I've never not done anything for New Year's before. But this year... I'm just geeking away, and will most probably not notice when the year actually ends.

I don't do resolutions, but here's some thanks and wishes:

I'm thankful that...

• Chris and I are much, much better off now than we were at the beginning of the year. Things may still be rocky, but at least we've improved.
  
• The kids are doing OK; Daniel loves school, and Justin is growing into a much nicer little person.
  
• I didn't bleed to death in September.
  
• I'm halfway through Boring Law Year.
  
• Chris is almost half done his residency.
  
• I'm not depressed. Chronically, that is.
  

I hope that...

• Things will continue to improve in our marriage
  
• We get through the next term OK even though I won't be able to spend as much time with the kids
  
• My hysterectomy goes OK.
  
• My mom gets better soon.
  
• Todd gets better soon.
  
• We get to spend more time together as a family and with friends.
  
• We go camping at least three times.