When I was young and living in Northern BC, the idea of trick-or-treating as a fairy princess was ridiculous. By the time October 31st rolled around, there was usually a good measure of snow on the ground and everyone's parents required them to wear their snowsuit. As a result, fairy princess outfits were muumuus and clown costumes were suffocating. In fact, one would usually have a costume for school (inside) and a costume for trick-or-treating (outside).

I always thought it was a nice bit of luck that the kids living down here don't have to work their costumes around the winter gear. I don't know why I hadn't thought of the rain. Believe it or not, we have made a construction paper excavator for Franklin and look at the forecast for Monday night:

I can see it now, this little three year old excavator waddling around with a umbrella toting mother at his heels. I'm thinking we may need to attach some sort of umbrella to the top of it but I don't think it's strong enough.

This is what Dickson is watching right now, Clint Eastwood's "Million Dollar Baby".
I'm not.
I don't watch movies that manipulate me into feeling a certain way using dark lighting techniques and dramatic music. I can't - at least not since having Franklin. I have enough emotion running through my veins in a 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, "cycle" that I have started to resent the Hollywood movie industry and it's emotional carnival ride.

See? I'm angry enough.
I don't need to watch boxers die.

Instead, I'm hooked up to Dickson's incredibly expensive and magnificent headphones. I bought these babies for him but I must confess that my generous gift was not solely because I know how much of a music lover he is - and let me tell you, he is one Big Music Lover. The headphones are also a reflection of how much I hate popular music playing in the house. I can't concentrate when it's on, I always feel like I'm trying to talk over somebody else's conversation and if something important is happening (like a tsunami warning siren!), I won't be able to hear it over the music. Dickson likes to listen to his music loud - by loud, I mean at a volume that is somewhat, barely audible.

Am I not a horrible partner?
Yeah okay, quit agreeing with me on that. If you are reading this blog, you are supposed to be my friend.
Ha! Why the hell did I write that?

However! Wait! Although I have no idea what I'm listening to, these earphones are orgasmic. Seriously, I'm not kidding (ha). What AM I listening to?

Let us take a peak and chance that I might be infected by an Eastwood horror for a brief moment....

Radiohead. Hail to the Thief.
I particularly like "Sit Down. Stand Up". It reminds me of my life - this song title, I mean. Other than that, I have no bloody clue what they are saying.
"The Gloaming" is doing a good little number too - especially with these headphones. I think if I could hear the entire world through these guys I might start groovin to the sound of babies crying and squeaking balloons.
That doesn't make any sense, does it...

Does anyone know of these guys? I think they are somewhat popular, right?
They aren't bad, better than Eastwood, anyway.

I became one of those annoying people who announce a pregnancy without actually being pregnant today. I'm confessing my sin to you now in order to feel better about it. I fessed up right away... and to be fair, in the context of the moment, it was hilarious. 50% of my office was in the midst of announcing it was leaving for other jobs and the first thing I could think of to derail the moment even further was to yell out, "AND I"M PREGNANT!�?

I hate it when people do that - role-play for shock value. It's like desperate/wishful thinking... and I'm not... desperate, wishful or thinking about procreating anytime soon. For the next couple of years, maternity would not be a good thing - even though I am fully aware that Dickson's clock is ticking faster than a herd of elephants.

So, why did such a thing enter my head?
Because my breasts are tender and I'm moody, I suppose.

Still, I'm not pregnant.

I do however, sound like Charlie Brown's teacher.
I'm training someone these days. This means that my workload will soon decrease substantially. This is a good thing for me, but I pity the fool who has to listen to me drone on and on about that thing I do at work - that work thing... that thing I won't mention but will occasionally tap dance around in an effort to keep up my onion skin facade of professionalism.

Wah Wa Wah Wah Wa Wa

Is this what I would sound like if I were gabbing on some ham radio to anonymous wackos on the other side of the world?

Wah Wa Wa Wah Wah Wa Wa

Poor Franklin.

Meanwhile, in parenting news, we have made headway on The Great Excavator Costume.

Fortunately, we are not as mechanically handicapped as we feared and the thing looks remarkably like an excavator.
Unfortunately, Franklin is under the impression that the arm will actually move, scoop candy out of the bowl and dump it into the bag.

We have never given him the impression that it would be able to do ANY of these things and I choose to blame the daycare for these high expectations. Franklin has a very enthusiastic and imaginative woman who takes primary care of him. I think, if I were in her shoes, I'd also be telling him all sorts of grandiose ideas about what an excavator costume could potentially do (if his parents were mechanical geniuses) because this is reality my friend. The kid's gotta learn sometime - Parents Just Let You Down (and embarrass you with their singing).

I'm so sorry Jen. Thanks for giving me something to do for you though. You are always so thoughtful.

Here's hoping that you're holding them until it's time to fold them...

If there was ever a time when I thought that my mother-in-law might think I'm strange for writing on a somewhat daily basis about the somewhat more entertaining parts of my life, I am no longer worried. The following are parts of an email sent to me the other night (the emphasis is mine):

next Sat. our choir at church is putting on a high tea-- should that be capitalized--at this moment I don't think so. This thing was not my idea, but agreed to go along with it so now I am baking up a storm--fancy baking. I'd rather be on the computer.

and:

We need to take linen, crystal, bone china cups and saucers, silver etc etc to the church by next Fri. to set up. It goes on and on - I'd rather be on the computer...

I think my husband may have married his mother.

Yet, I am in such a bad mood.
It's really a shame.

I didn't do so great on my mid-term - at least not great according to my "lets be mature and get perfect grades" standard (as opposed to my "lets see how many people can like me and think I'm cool" standard I had in my early twenties).

I know what I'm about to say is incredibly unfair as my life has been one big ball of free choice but as I walked away from my lab this afternoon (after a full day of working a new job as well as my old one, waking up before dawn to get my son to daycare and a night of studying until 2am) I had the displeasure of listening to a fellow student whine about feeling "tied down" to a house-sitting job in which she has to walk two dogs AND GET PAID FOR IT. She is angry that she has to clean a home she's been living in for two weeks because the owners are coming back tomorrow. As well, apparently she gets "frazzled" if she doesn't get at least three hours of "alone time" every day.

Okay okay, I understand that this is simply her reality and everyone has their own threshold level. Most likely I just feel crappy because I have a gigantic ego and feel/felt that my threshold is/was so much larger than it actually could/should be. When things start to snowball as two courses, two full jobs (one of which I worry I still don't know a thing about), a toddler and a partner start to make me feel overwhelmed, I start to resent the people who get upset that they weren't able to have a full weekend in the library.

A FULL WEEKEND? IN THE LIBRARY?
I watched a TV show the other night (Veronica Mars anyone?) and felt incredibly guilty.

Jesus, Mary and Joseph, I forget what the adult section of a library even looks like.
I CAN, however, tell you what time the birds start to sing in the morning and what time our neighbour downstairs turns on her television in the morning.

Anyway, at least the lawsuit is over and done. If I were to appear in court, I would have known by today at the latest. I was going to contact my representative today just to check but I got busy... two jobs, two courses, a toddler and a partner... blah blah blah.

I'm whining. I get angry when I hear other people whining and I'm whining.
I'll stop.
No comments or emails about how it's my party and I can whine if I want to please. Whining on my website starts small and innocent but I find it can quickly slide into something a lot more pathetic and boring (see above).

To tell you the truth, I just want to gocco gocco gocco to my hearts content.
I bought a gocco on ebay about a month ago and have created only a couple of prints. Nevertheless, I think I have a gocco soul. In fact, I think I was a gocco in my former life.
As I read about bid-rent curves and urban development, I drift back to designing culture jamming gocco stickers. As I watch hockey/admire Don Cherry's outfits, I think of hockey widow sympathy cards... everything is gocco.

I think I'm just trying to look for diversions that I can't afford.
Argh.

Anyway, you can see my first attempt at gocco printing on flickr:

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My first post back and the server goes kaput. Imagine being the person I am (neurotic and anal) and seeing a mistake on your previous entry without being able to fix it.
More importantly, imagine being this person (self-obsessed dork) coming back after a big gulp, sigh and giant leap and no one being able to welcome her back to the internet.

- not that I'm asking you to welcome me back.... it's just that although the server was not trying to "make it personal", both it and the human server of that writ of summons can kiss my warm, baby soft ass.

I know that some of you would appreciate a bit of a story. However, I still can't discuss it. It's not that I'm scarred and recounting the tale will reduce me to a puddle of mush, it's just that I can't give any details at this point. I can tell you this; it has nothing to do with my job, my freedom of speech or the name of my blog. In reality (remember that?), this issue has come waaaay out of left field. Seriously, nothing you would ever expect - at least, nothing I ever expected.

Incidentally, Franklin wants to be an excavator for Hallowe'en this year.
We have no idea but we're thinking it will involve cardboard and duct tape.

Suggestions?

Since this non-blogging thing happened, I've arrived at an outstanding number of great revelations. Big Light Bulbs, I tell you. Of course, none of which I can remember correctly at this point. Perhaps I should have been blogging all this time and saving the drafts.

Yeah.

Anyway, at least I've remembered these three things from today:

1) Toddlers require throw pillows. If you have no pillows in your home and you are about to embark on the Toddler Express, GET THEE SOME PILLOWS.
Trust me young thing, you'll understand when you’re older.

2) When crap deep in the hell that is "WHY WHY WHY WHY", the best response (after they've strategically countered the trusty "right back atcha" tactic) is to overwhelm them in the details.
When Franklin asked me why there were all those people standing outside the university carrying signs, I proceeded to explain to him the intricacies of union bargaining, back to work legislation, public education, and the judiciary system in British Columbia.
He was silent for a moment. Then told me to sing along with him to "You are My Sunshine" - most likely because he knew I was talking out of my ass and had no clue what was really going on except that we were spending the day together and he wasn't going to daycare.

3) Reliving your childhood is fun. Hence, our continuous watching of "Harold and the Purple Crayon" on this very rainy and protesty afternoon has been utter bliss. So is making chocolate chip cookies’, giving each other "tattoos", playing hide-and-go-seek and making sure our buses have comfortable places to sleep.

Things are still up in the air and I'll probably be off for a bit longer. It's a combination of how freaked out I am and how much this entire incident has shown me that weblogs are creepy... and a source of ammunition to many people. I'm one of those people - who think it's creepy. Okay okay yes, I'm a little creepy too...

I used to know a woman who had a horrible weblog. It wasn't horrible in terms of writing style or design (okay, it was a little of that, but that's only my personal taste) but because of how mean and spiteful it was. She seemed to write only to be able to make personal attacks she couldn't seem to confront in her real life. I suppose this was a form of release, but it was the constant passive aggressive, false-front, spiteful and superficial shout to the entire world that disgusted me. It made me angry because she didn't seem to understand that weblogs are public and they can be read by anyone. Sure, you can trace IP addresses, but what good is that unless you are looking for smug satisfaction that someone is reading your snide messages?
Regardless, she didn't understand my point of view (which is fine) and I wasn't able to understand how she could attack people on such a public medium (which was perfectly fine with her). I was horrified to be considered a part of the same sub-culture as she was (which, I also believe, was perfectly fine with her) and therefore questioned why I wrote a blog in the first place.

Interestingly, I find this part of my blogging past a little humorous considering what I'm worried about right now. I really wish I could explain it, but I don't think it's a wise decision. People who are close to me and know the story think that I can use the situation as a topic to write about someday. However, I just don't think it's a good thing to do - at least not now.

Heh. Yes but... if I have to go to court I'll DEFINITELY be blogging about it later.

I really don't know what's happening - at least not the nitty gritty details.
I know that there are lawyers - who speak in a language I am scared of.
I know that the lawyer on my side hasn't called me to go to court - yet.
I most definitely know that no news is good news at this point.

Funny thing is, I don't mind this non-blogging thing. I thought I would miss it a hell of a lot more than I actually do. Of course, there are things that have happened lately that I would love to share with you but I think I'm going to wait a bit more before I'm actually back on. I suppose I'm just popping out to say 'Hi' and 'Thanks' - for all the comments and emails.

Our cat brought in a bird the other morning. The last time he did that was when my dog died and the house was one steaming pile of stress.
I think he senses the tension.

I have two entries for today.

I've chosen to publish the more mature and discrete one.
I hate it when I get all mature and discrete.

I'm not writing here for awhile.

Hiatus Time

Talk amongst yourselves. I'll give you a topic....

"lawsuits"

I'm sorry about that last post. If you remember the pre-menstrual thing I mentioned awhile ago in regards to inconsequential cupcakes, you should know that it still applies.
I was never this moody before I had a child...

Why can't I find a middle ground? Innocent suffering and cupcakes; these are the extremes I seem to live in these days.

I'm about to go upstairs and read all about that time Mr. Bunny told that cat where to stick it's paw, how a bunch of dogs like to whoop it up in a big tree and find another excuse to kiss Franklin until his face chaps.

I just wanted to ask:

Do toddlers get such big poops that sometimes there is blood?
Apparently this is a common thing?

I know constipation is a well-covered subject in terms of mother-blogging, but I still feeling a little perplexed.
Apparently, it doesn't hurt to poo so we've ruled out an anal fissure. However, he says he doesn't like to poo so we're thinking he's holding it until it's massive - because Lord of Honey are his poops GI NORMOUS.

D and I haven't seen the blood in the poo. In fact, it happened at daycare and they haven't seen it since. I'm a little enamoured with them for even being able to report on the colour and substance of his poo in the first place. I have to admit that I don't examine Franklin's poo all that much - at least I didn't. I'll definitely be breaking out the microscope from now on though.

So... how common is this?

I'll be checking the Internet later tonight but I just thought I'd ask.

Sometimes it feels like there's a puppet master that's pulling the strings in a bored experiment - like a SIM city game that has become sustainable and it's only exciting when you get to throw in a hurricane somewhere.
I swear, at times there is nothing more I would like in life than to understand why children are tortured, and killed in such horrible ways. I would trade my own life to understand why these things happen.

There are a lot of times I don't want to write or I can't get the words out to explain how I'm feeling and I think this will be anothing good example.

I feel so helpless (and then get so angry) when I read about Omayra Sanchez, Lina and Diana and James Juga.
I need to try and understand these things in order to help me sleep at night. They are so hard to understand.

When I was in highschool I had a good friend (agnostic) who challenged me (was Catholic*) to explain why such things happen in life if there was a God. I remember having to think long and hard about it and came to the conclusion that God was there but he's wasn't controlling us. I know this is all familar and taught, but for some reason I remember it as some epiphany for me.

*It's not that I don't think I'm not Catholic anymore, but actually admitting I'm Catholic makes me feel like I'm insulting other Catholics.

I actually do believe in God. There was a good chunk of time where I didn't think I did. However, when everything else is stripped away, "God" keeps popping up.

To be brutally honest, I'm still not sure if this is a product of my upbringing or my need for other people to approve of me.
(sorry about that, Mom)

Lately I have been thinking that when things like this are happening, I am an uncomfortably large part of it - as a result of where and how I live.

(ahh, sometimes I write things that make no sense.)

This is parenthood: the banality of life punctuated by moments of sheer terror far greater than any you feel when it's just a matter of your own existence. We teeter on the edge of disaster constantly, and then return just as quickly to the normality of denial that allows us to function without thinking about all the things that can kill our kids in a day.

Yes.

Everyone say "Happy Birthday Franklin!"

He's officially three now. I swear we have been talking about this birthday for weeks, months even, and now the day has come and gone.

Get this: The photo you see here is the ONLY photo I took for the entire birthday. This was Franklin and I wandering around outside before the guests arrived. The box you see behind him is a big "bus" that is interestingly enough, a big hit with the three-year-old set. Who knew? Buy a printer for your work and bring the box home for hours of quality screeching.

The pinata was pulled, the playground was explored and thirteen children with parentals jammed into our tiny townhouse for lunch and cake.

Franklin was amazingly gracious with all his toys. I was impressed - as were the rest of the parents. There were NO tantrums for the entire party - from any of them.

None.

You may not have any idea what this means if you are not the parent of a toddler. It is a serious accomplishment and although I know I will get emails up the whazoo for this, I think much of it has to do with the fact that all of these kids are in some kind of preschool care or have siblings. They have those rules down pat. Although whining and tantrums may occasionally happen at home, when among a group of kids, there is no whining/grabbing/stamping of the feet and falling down in a shaking fit of terror.

Whatever the reason for the calming chaos (preschool, the alignment of planets, a new stack of toys), it doesn't matter. I love my son.

We had a good day.