Melt Down

I had a melt down this morning. I'm being kind to myself by sparing you the details but you wouldn't be far off if you imagined an over-tired, hungry two year old with an angry scrunched up face, glistening with a mixture of snot and tears.

I may have even stomped my foot at one point.

Seriously.

Lucky for me, the only ones who witnessed my drama queen theatrics were my dogs and Knox, who luckily for him, is mostly deaf and blind and remained oblivious to my freak out. My husband's iPhone may have melted from the heat of my text messages though.

Angry toddler text messaging. It's an art.

I try to limit my cry baby antics for the really big things in life, like when the car engine blows when you are on a rural high way, or the bank double dipped and took out two mortgage payments at once by mistake, leaving you with not enough change to buy a jug of milk but this morning, I had no control. 

None. 

ANGRY TODDLER SMASH.

We ran out of water.

Which, when you have your water trucked in and you've disabled your tank alarm, is not an altogether uncommon occurrence. Big deal. I'll just order more and the dogs can drink out of the toilet until it gets here, right?

So I ordered water and made a mental note to keep Abbott in the house because the water guy is not entirely convinced Abbott won't rip his face off.

A half hour later I looked out the window and realized there was no way any truck could access my water cistern because we just had 50 yards of gravel dumped into the middle of our driveway, where it will remain until my husband is home in a few weeks to spread it.

That was the moment the water delivery dude chose to pull up to the yard. 

Water, so close and yet so far.

That was the moment when I crumbled. For the most part, I can usually hold it together for the small emergencies of home ownership. But lately it seems it's been one emergency or problem after another, whether it's been home related, yard related or child related.

I was starting to feel like the little Dutch boy, sticking my finger in the dike, trying to plug up the leaks. Only I just ran out of fingers.

So I cried. Which is always helpful. And I stomped my feet. Which is even more productive. Next time I should try and remember to shake my fist at the sky too, to really make myself feel better.

I cursed the Zeppelin Hangar and rued the day my husband dreamt it into existence. If it weren't for the stupid garage we never would have needed to rip up the yard, move the cistern, destroy the driveway, re-grade the yard, pour a new sidewalk, get new lawn and re-gravel the drive. 

My husband's stupid man cave is the gift that just refuses to quit giving. 

Heck, I'm sure if we hadn't built that stupid garage we'd be millionaires, Knox would be able to walk, Skjel would still be alive, Nixon's head would still be on his body, Abbott wouldn't puke on my bed and world peace would happen tomorrow.

Foot stomp. 

I wish I could tell you that I pulled my shit together, removed my head from my arse and figured out a solution to our gravel blockade. I didn't. 

My son, bless that boy, who happened to arrive home at just the right moment, took one look at the water truck and one look at the gravel pile blocking the truck and shot into action. He found a new hose that his dad had bought and him and the water dude managed to get water into our far away water tank while I was inside the house feeling sorry for myself and sending pathetic text messages to my husband.

"WE HAVE NO WATER!"

"I'M GOING TO DEHYDRATE AND TURN TO DUST BUT NOT BEFORE I TURN INTO A SMELLY GREASE STAIN AND SEND A CLOUD OF NOXIOUS BODY ODOUR INTO THE OZONE."

"I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU LISTENED TO ME AND HAD THE GRAVEL TRUCKED IN WHEN I ASKED YOU TO BECAUSE NOW I HAVE NO WATER BUT FIFTY YARDS OF RED ROAD CRUSH AND THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT!"

"IT'S NOT YOUR FAULT. I'M INSANE. I HAVEN'T HAD ANY COFFEE YET. WHY? BECAUSE THERE IS NO WATER."

"WHY AREN'T YOU ANSWERING MY TEXT MESSAGES?

"YOU ARE PROBABLY SWIMMING IN AN OCEAN OF FRESH WATER, RIGHT NOW AREN'T YOU?"

"HOW SICK WILL I GET IF I BOIL POOL WATER TO MAKE COFFEE?"

"IF YOU LOVED ME YOU'D NEVER LEAVE ME ALONE WITH NO WATER."

"BRUCE?"

The thing is, once I had wound myself up, there was no unwinding, even as I watched my son take charge of the situation I clearly should have, and act like the adult that I was incapable of being in the moment. 

And that's what shames me.

Sometimes, when you are parenting alone, with no back up, life gets overwhelming. The little problems, life's hiccups? They chip away at you, leaving you more and more vulnerable until the dam bursts and the angry inner toddler stomps their feet.

Hours later, my husband called to check on my sanity and me. 

I'm still sane, and now, showered and caffeinated, I'm grateful for the man I'm raising my son to be, because he really did swoop in and save us all from dehydrating and stinking.

But deep inside, I worry that I failed some invisible test because I melted down. 

And I worry that one day, all the cracks I have will be visible to everyone and my inner angry inner toddler won't be so easily contained.

It's My Civic Duty

It's a long weekend up here where I am and I'm exhausted from trying to keep up with my kids. Pool parties, sleep overs, football games with streakers. 

I have no energy. At this point, my idea of fun is fresh sheets and a soft bed. I don't even care if anyone is in it. I'm tired yo'.

I'm so bushed I don't even have the energy to settle the age old Canadian debate my kids are trying to suck me into.

Who is hotter:

Ryan Gosling or Ryan Reynolds.

 vs

It takes a lot of energy to analyze that much pretty. Energy I am currently trying to conserve because I need it to shake the water out of my ears from being repeatedly dunked in the pool on Saturday night by one teenaged kid after another. 

I asked Facebook who was hotter. Facebook was of no help. My kids? Split down the middle. My husband? He can't keep either of them straight and insists the one with the bigger boobs is prettier. 

A Canadian long weekend is never complete with out a good old fashioned debate about the Ryans. Until hockey season starts, it's either argue about this or local politics. And dear lord, I don't know if I can handle that much boob talk.

Consider this argument my civic duty on this here Civic holiday. 

or

Being a Canadian is so terribly hard sometimes.

Better Than Gold

I had barely dragged my carry-on luggage up my deck stairs, thumping it behind me as I walked, and opened the front door when I was swarmed by eager teens.

"How was it? Did you have fun? Did you see your friends?"

"How was your panel? Did you kill it?"

"What did you bring back for us?"

"Ya Mom, what kind of swag did you bring us?" 

It took 12 hours, two planes and one mysterious Aussie band but I was finally home from spending five days in Chicago. I was exhausted and emotionally spent and in the five days I was gone from my home I had appeared to lose any ability I previously had to walk into my house and step into a parenting role before setting down my luggage. 

I stood there, exhausted, and just blinked at the rapid-fire questions being shot in my direction. As grateful as I was to be home I suddenly missed the silence the roar of an airplane affords one. 

My husband, bless his cotton socks, was sympathetic. "You guys, give your Mom some space and let her take her shoes off before harassing her."

My dog, bless his over-sized paws, was not as sympathetic. He eyed me warily; like I was a mirage his mind was tricking him into seeing and just waited. I sat down as the kids hovered around me and Abbott walked over to sniff me. With a great huffing sigh, he shook his body and then crawled onto my lap, staking ownership of me once more.

I'm pretty sure if he could have crawled into my womb, he'd be there right now.

He has not forgiven me for my absence and so I've a 180-pound hairy goiter attached to my arse. God bless the Mastiffs of the world.

"So Mom, what did you do while you were in Chicago?" my daughter asked as I was trying to move Abbott's pointy elbow from out of my bladder. 

"Well, I married you off to the conference co-founder's son in exchange for a goat." 

"You did that last year. I thought by now I'd be worth at least a few chickens as well."

"I settled for a lamb chop." Proof that I've mastered the art of haggling. (And that I was hungry at the time.)

My son, bored by my daughter's impending arranged marriage, asked, "Besides selling your offspring for livestock, what else did you do?" Little does he know I need the goat for his sister so that I can buy him a wife. It's all about planning for the future.

And so, at midnight, with a giant dog snoring on my lap, I regaled my teens with stories of what it is like to attend a giant blogging conference in a far away land.

"Well, I moderated and spoke on a panel with some fabulous women about the power of story telling."

Their eyes glazed over.

"No, it was really interesting. We talked about the importance of voice and connective tissue and there was a lot of talk about stew and how everyone needs a gay person."

They just blinked.

"Just trust me. It was awesome." It really was.

No really. It was.

"What else did you do Mom?"

Hmm. "Well, I ate bad food with my friends at what was possibly the worst Chinese restaurant in all of Chicago and corrupted the mind of a twelve year old in the back of a cab. That was fun."

*Picture snaked from Anissa Mayhew's instagram feed.*

"You eat bad Chinese here and are constantly corrupting the minds of young people all the time. Look at our team mates," Ken pointed out.

Good point.

"I chased some nuns all over a park, trying to get a photo of them. That was something I don't get to do often."

"Did you meet Queen Latifah?" My daughter asked, uninterested with my habit chasing. 

"Of course! Well, okay, no. But! I was on stage at the same time with her and at one point I was close enough to inappropriately sniff her hair."

Neither of my kids were impressed with my celebrity sniffing so I continued on, flicking through my camera roll on the iPhone.

"I played tourist and explored the city and took some really awesome photos of downtown Chicago."

Ya. TOTALLY AWESOME PHOTOS. I have dozens of these epic beauties. My eye is unparalleled. Good thing I went to all those photography sessions to learn how to be a better photographer. 

"Oh! And women kept coming up to me to ask if they could take pictures of my shoes because for once, I had cute kicks. At a women's blogging conference, this is important."

These are not those kicks. But this is yet another awesome photo I took, showcasing my epic photography skills. 

"That's it?" my son asked, while stifling a yawn? "Bad photos, lousy Chinese food and hair sniffing a celebrity? That's what you do when you go away?"

"Well when you put it like that, Nash, sure. But it's more than that. It's about the connections I make with people. Meeting new faces, celebrating old friendships, making new ones. Learning and relating and having new experiences. That's what makes these trips so wonderful. Well that, and I won't lie, Queen Latifah's hair is worth sniffing."

"You forgot the most important part Mom!" my daughter added.

"I did?"

"The SWAG. Everyone knows the swag is the best part of conferences," she explained, talking slowly as though I was stupid.

Right. The SWAG.

"How could I forget?! The SWAG! I brought back the best swag. In fact, this swag was so good I didn't bring anything back but this. Everything else paled in comparison," I proudly stated.

Ken and Nash looked at me, excitedly, their eyes lit from greedy excitement.

"What is it?" they asked simultaneously.

"It's in my suitcase. Right on the top. Go ahead. You can look." No sooner did I have the words out of my mouth were they scrambling to rip open my carry-on bag.

"This is it? The only stuff you brought back?" Disbelief and disappointment rolled off them.

I don't know why they were so disappointed. This stuff is better than gold when you have a 9 year old kid in medical diapers.

Everyone should have an unlimited supply of butt paste. 

*A big thanks to everyone who said hello to me while in Chicago. Thanks for making this trip so wonderful. 

*An even bigger thanks to the staff of BlogHer for putting on such a fabulous event. 

*The biggest thanks to the city of Chicago and all its residents for being damn awesome. Until we meet again.