The Grand Plan

What to do with the rest of my weekend:

- See if I can still make the tail end of a birthday party.
- Go see The Usual Suspects in the park tonight.
- Rearrange new kitchen furniture.
- Finish laundry.
- Start picking paint colours.
- Try and drag reclusive friends out to Sunday brunch.
- Go shopping for something a bit more upscale than jeans and tank tops. Remember to buy Teagan yet another pink hat.

Wheee!

Ever have one of those moments...

...when something is totally off-kilter, but it takes a minute to figure out exactly what it is? I had one of those moments today. I was standing alone in the store - a customer walks in, and I immediately feel as though something was off. I couldn't figure out what it was at first - they didn't seem like one of those stealie stealie types you have to watch like a hawk, nor one of the crazy conspiracy theorists we sometimes are besieged with.


Then it hits me.


This woman is wearing a fur lined parka, toque and winter boots.


In July.


*shakes head*

Uh yeah, remind me not to that again...

Why is it I am surprised when people who have consistently lied to me in the past lie to me again?


There is an Ani lyric for all occasions:


"they say goldfish have no memory
i guess their lives are much like mine
and the little plastic castle
is a surprise every time"

Happy Birthday, Teagan!

So my little girl is two years old today, and it boggles my mind. That tiny little thing I held in my arms is now a huge toddler, who runs and leaps and tries to kill herself on a near daily basis with all the running and leaping. She can string together two and three word sentences - such important things as "water is wet" and my personal favorite, "Monkey Jane" (thanks InfiniteWaitState). She has recently developed a sense of humour, and makes strange little jokes she finds endlessly amusing.

Since she is mine, she is of course the most adorable child ever invented. She is incredibly joyful, exuberant, headstrong and completely fearless. She has taught me so much in her short time here, not least of which is the endless capacity we humans have to love.

Happy Birthday, Baby!

First check your feet - then choose your dance.

My first month as a single parent is drawing to a close. In some ways it's been easier than I though - in others, much harder. I am usually such a solitary person, I didn't realize how very accustomed I had gotten to there always being someone around to talk to. I divide my time pretty much equally between feeling strong and confident and like a total failure. Most times, I look towards the future, making plans and setting new goals and just trying to get through each day with some small amount of grace.

Other times I sit around feeling like a total nutcase - a bad mommy whose daughter watches too much tv, a bad friend who burdens people with the constant need for stupid favours because she can't remember that she just can't pop out to the grocery store for diapers at ten o'clock at night anymore. A bad daughter who hasn't yet managed to mail her Father's Day gift because she just can't seem to get it together.

Some days I wake up positively giddy, as though I have been given a precious gift - my life has been handed back to me without the constant stress of a relationship gone terribly wrong. I feel like I found myself somewhere inside a very bitter and angry stranger, and rediscovered the person who knew how to laugh.

The only thing I don't seem to be doing is mourning the passing of my marriage. That worried my for a while, that I must be suppressing something to feel so little about the ending of a huge chapter in my life. Then I realized - I already did that. I've spent the last two years doing that.

The mourning is over. It's time to let it go, grab onto this new life with both hands, and leap.

And Who Said Television Wasn't Educational?

Teagan has learned two new words today: clue and bubble. Now, if you add her other words, blue and puppy, any parent will know exactly who is introducing my baby to the wonderful world of language. (Well, other than InfiniteWaitState, of course, who is diligently trying to teach her the words ninja, coup, and totalitarian regime.)

I have learned the secret, finally, of what exactly it was that replaced the little yellow pill as Mommy's little helper - and it's DVDs full of a inexplicably blue little dog. Sometimes singing vegetables work, too. But that song about the pirates who don't do anything tends to get stuck in your head.

Who needs valium when some guy named Joe is getting paid what I hope is very good money to sing about going to the toilet.

This Week Has Kind of Sucked...

...but on an up note, I now fit into a pair of pants I haven't been able to wear since getting pregnant.

Yay me!