She's growing up....

Freyja turned 8 yesterday.

I remember being 8. I felt like I was growing up faster than my friends, and a year later I started my period and pretty much decided that all those childish things were too immature.

Freyja has always held on to her childishness tightly, she hasn't wanted to grow up. This week though, for reasons we had no control over, my baby has shown just how mature she is becoming in some ways.

On Monday we found out that the victim of the truck crash last week was the Dad of one of her best friends. Lee and I had met him several times, and I have to say he was a lovely man, always smiling and joking, clearly a devoted father and husband. It was terrible finding out that the victim of that awful scene was a man we knew, and especially for Freyja, that it was her friends' Daddy.

Monday evening she cried lots, as did I. She worried about me and her Daddy dying in an accident. But mostly she worried about her friend. "How could it be her Daddy?" she asked "I just don't understand Mommy, why would God take such a nice man away from his family". "How will M manage without her Daddy? How can I make her feel better?"

So many questions that I just didn't have the answer to.

Tuesday she went to school and there was a grief counsellor there for the kids to talk to. She talked, she listened, and when they said that there should be 2 kids to meet her friend when she came back to school, Freyja put her hand up and said she had to be one of them, because they had known each other the longest and she knew her friend would need her help.

Wednesday, it was her birthday. She turned 8. She went to the Aggie Days with school. She opened presents and we all had KFC for dinner at her request. It was her day.

Thursday, today, her first thought was again for her friend. She comes back to school today. Freyja disappeared as we were about to leave the house and came back with a favourite stuffed dog. I told her stuffies weren't allowed at school.

"Its not for me" she said " Its for M. She comes back to school today and I think she will need something to hug sometimes, so this is for her to keep, so she can hug it and feel better and know I love her".

Only 8 and so grown up......

Happy Birthday Fidgetty Widget!

When I was pregnant with Freyja, my sister-in-law was expecting at the same time, and the baby who would become Charlotte was known as "Bean".  As "Bean' was no longer a family option for a nickname for our bundle to be, we started calling 'it' "Widget".  This soon became "Fidgetty Widget" as that little baby on board never kept still.  She's been the same ever since.

Today, my little tornado turns 8!  At 4.04pm GMT (9.05am here in Calgary) my little girl moves that step closer to being a woman, and I'm scared!

Its been quite a week in our house, good and also, pretty much as bad as you can get.  At the weekend, she went off to Brownie Camp.  I dropped her off Friday night, and barely managed to get her to stop chatting with her friends long enough to say goodbye to her sister and I, a sign of how grown up and independant she is getting.  When I collected her on Sunday though, I got a huge hug and "I missed you" whispered in my ear.

While she had a great time at camp, impressed the leaders with her enthusiasm and her behaviour, she also missed her family and even had a little cry at night.  While I hate that she was upset, a little part of me is happy that there is enough child in there to still miss a night time hug and kiss.

When she came home on Sunday, she told me how she had been worrying all weekend that I was going and never coming back, that something was going to happen.  Nothing did happen, of course, but my sensitive little girl was maybe picking up something in the cosmos.

On Monday, I got a call from the school asking me to collect Freyja as she was not feeling well.  I left work, went and got her, much to her surprise as she had expected her Daddy, and took her home.  She had a tummy ache that wouldn't go away, so we went through all the questions.  Did you eat your lunch?  Did you eat the fruit or just the bad stuff?  Did you eat properly at camp this weekend?  Did you drink enough water at camp?  How about at school?  Did you go to the bathroom at camp?

The answer to the last question turned out to be 'No" so I figured I had my answer and promptly ordered her to the bathroom with a book to "give it a try".  Success, but still a tummy ache that persisted.  I dutifully set her up in my bed with a glass of water and the TV remote.  I then began making phone calls to find out which of her friends was coming to her party this coming weekend as I hadn't had RSVPs.  "I don't think M is coming" she says as I'm about to call.  I make the call and her Grandma answers, not her Mom, and sure enough M isn't coming.  I tell her she was right.  "I thought she wouldn't because K said today that M's Dad died in a truck accident last week"

Oh My God !!!!!!

There had been a horrific accident involving a tractor trailer on the main route near our home the week before, but it was Easter week, the kids were off school, I hadn't had a chance to read the details and Monday had been their first day back.  I got out my phone, Googled his name, and there it was, an obituary and the date of the crash......

Now I knew why my baby had a tummy ache.  She had been holding that to herself all afternoon, not knowing what to say, or if it was true.  We knew M's dad.  Not well, but enough that he and M's Mom had once come to our house and had food before we all set out Trick or Treating together one Halloween.  We'd see him at school dances and Christmas shows and chat. He was a truly nice, good man, and a wonderful father and husband.

All Monday night, Freyja would ask for hugs and squeeze tightly, she didn't want to go to bed, but finally, after an hour of cajolling, she did and amazingly she slept soundly for a few hours, not waking until around 2am.  I lay with her another hour then, and I am not sure who needed it more, me or her.  She fell asleep again, and slept till morning, waking in that resiliant way that kids do after bad news. 

She went to school Tuesday and I called to tell them we knew what had happened and was told a grief counsellor was going to be with her class that morning.  I wish I'd had one myself as I was a wreck.  We weren't close, but I knew him, I knew the horrible way his life had ended, I knew the confusion and sadness I was feeling were the same feelings my poor girl had, and like me, she was likely imagining "what if it had been her Daddy".

My big girl came home yesterday without mentioning her friend or the grief counsellor, so I mentioned it to her. "Yes" she said "it helped to talk about it. M is coming back to school on Thursday and they said two of her friends should be close to her all the time and go to meet her at the door.  I told them I should be one of them as I have known her longer than anyone, and I knew her Daddy, so I think I will be able to be a good friend and help her feel better."

Only 8 today, off to 'Aggie Days' with the school to see the animals, she will be a kid having fun again, but tomorrow, she will be that mature girl, the shoulder to support her friend.  Saturday, she will be the kid again, enjoying her party, but I know part of her will be thinking about the friend who isn't there, the friend who is at home missing her Daddy. 

My baby isn't a baby any more.  She has kept telling me she didn't want to grow up, and I kept telling her it happens to everyone, but I thought the biggest thing threatening to bring the end of childhood would be the onset of puberty....  I never thought my girl would have to deal with such big issues so soon in life, and I am so proud of how strong she is being, and how her first and continuing thought is how she can make her friend feel better, feel happy, even if just for a moment. 

What a wonderful person she is growing up to be, my sweet, kind, loving, feisty, argumentative, creative, all singing, all dancing, Fidgetty Widget xxx

May you live in interesting times....

Interesting Times by (Sir)Terry Pratchett

Extract from the beginning of the book.... (if you like it, you can follow the link to a website I found where the whole darn thing is there for free, along with all his other books in the Discworld Series - oh, and by the way, I am actually going to blog, this is just a bit of a scene setter for my rambles.  Whether the scene is even in the same vicinity as my ramblings is for you to decide!)

There is a curse.

They say: May You Live in Interesting Times

This is where the gods play games with the lives of men, on a board which is at one and the same time a simple playing area and the whole world.

And Fate always wins.

Fate always wins. Most of the gods throw dice but Fate plays chess, and you don't find out until too late that he's been using two queens all along.

Fate wins. At least, so it is claimed. Whatever happens, they say afterwards, it must have been Fate.

Gods can take any form, but the one aspect of themselves they cannot change is their eyes, which show their nature. The eyes of Fate are hardly eyes at all - just dark holes into an infinity speckled with what may be stars or, there again, may be other things.  He blinked them, smiled at his fellow players in the smug way winners do just before they become winners, and said:

'I accuse the High Priest of the Green Robe in the library with the double-handed axe.'  And he won.

He beamed at them.

'No-one likesh a poor winner,' grumbled Offler the Crocodile God, through his fangs.

'It seems that I am favouring myself today,' said Fate. 'Anyone fancy something else?'

The gods shrugged.

'Mad Kings?' said Fate pleasantly. 'Star-Crossed Lovers?'

'I think we've lost the rules for that one,' said Blind Io, chief of the gods.

'Or Tempest-Wrecked Mariners?'

'You always win,' said Io.

'Floods and Droughts?' said Fate. 'That's an easy one.'

A shadow fell across the gaming table. The gods looked up.

'Ah,' said Fate.

'Let a game begin,' said the Lady.

There was always an argument about whether the newcomer was a goddess at all. Certainly no-one ever got anywhere by worshipping her, and she tended to turn up only where she was least expected, such as now. And people who trusted in her seldom survived. Any temples built to her would surely be struck by lightning. Better to juggle axes on a tightrope than say her name. Just call her the waitress in the Last Chance saloon.

She was generally referred to as the Lady, and her eyes were green; not as the eyes of humans are green, but emerald green from edge to edge. It was said to be her favourite colour.

'Ah,' said Fate again. 'And what game will it be?'

She sat down opposite him. The watching gods looked sidelong at one another. This looked interesting. These two were ancient enemies.

'How about. . .' she paused,'. . . Mighty Empires?'

'Oh, I hate that one,' said Offler, breaking the sudden silence.  'Everyone dief at the end.'

'Yes,' said Fate, 'I believe they do.' He nodded at the Lady, and in much the same voice as professional gamblers say 'Aces high?' said, 'The Fall of Great Houses? Destinies of Nations Hanging by a Thread?'

'Certainly,' she said.


..... Terry Pratchett is without doubt my favourite author of modern times.  As a teenager, I lost myself in fantasy fiction of all kinds written by people such as David Eddings, Anne McCaffrey, Piers Anthony etc, and I loved them all, but then I grew up... and then I discovered Pratchett.  I found him in University and it has resulted in a cerebral love affair with him and his Discworld books for 15 years or so.  I was a history buff, I studied history, but I read history books 'for fun', I watched documentaries about the Roman and Greek empires to kick back and relax, enormous tomes of Ancient world mythology were my bedtime stories from the time I was ten....  then here was Pratchett.  His books took history, politics, mythology, old world fairie-tales and wove them in with a sarcasm and dry humour that I could not help but marvel at.    It became a game to spot the references to historical figures (Leonard of Quirm being an obvious reference to Leonardo da Vinci, Lord Vetinari being a not so obvious reference to the Medici of Italy- Its in the name ....you'll figure it out)

One of his books is called 'Interesting Times' and is based on the so called ancient Chinese Curse "May you live in interesting times".  I find we are living in very interesting times, and I wonder who it was that cursed us to it.  Maybe Fate and Lady Luck are playing games, just like in the book....

Sir Terry (the Queen wisely decided to give him a knighthood) is a remarkable man from a very unremarkable background.  He grew up in the UK, is the most prolific and most sold writer of modern times, despite his inevitable millions, he is still living in the UK and did not decide to escape like some of us, is friends with Tony Robinson (Baldrick from Blackadder) who narrates many of his books on audio book collections, and is a sufferer of Early Onset Alzheimer's.

Here is a man who has built a career from being able to store and recall pieces of seemingly useless information, like what a Boggart is, and weave them into a story to make millions of people smile, is slowly having his memory taken away from him at when he is still in the prime of life....  That's Fate having a laugh right there....

So, while we live in interesting times on a national level, there are always the individuals suffering as well, and most do it in silence.  Pratchett, did not and does not suffer in silence.  He speaks out about his disease and its consequences, and he is also bringing the subject of assisted suicide to the table while he's at it.  He wants to be able to chose to die before every part of him is sucked away by this, and frankly I can't say I blame him.

(OK time to get to the point of my ramble...) Lots of people hide things like this, from fear, from embarrassment, but the more people talk about things the more people can sort out their problems, whatever they may be.

I have 2 little 'issues' of my own.  Firstly, I suffer off and on from Depression.  Secondly, a week before my second daughter was born, I filed for bankruptcy.

I know other people who have been through both these things, one quite often inspires the other!  The main difference is that most of them have been embarrassed, fearful of what other people would think.  Depression can bring on financial woes, financial woes can bring on depression.  And guess what.... there isn't an App for that!  Mr Jobs may be working on one right now from the other side of the pearly gates, but right as of this moment there is no easy fix, you can't press a button and take it away.

My husband and I used to work for the same place.  Another couple we knew did too.  One day we got told it was shutting down.  We were lucky, we got new jobs, less wage but jobs nonetheless.  We rented our home.  We managed.

Our friends didn't get new jobs for a few months.  They owned their home....or rather the bank did.  Because they missed payments, the bank hiked up their payments to nearly $3000 a month once they were working again.  Their truck was repossessed in the middle of the night.  My friend contemplated suicide but could not do that to her husband and daughter because she had no life insurance and they would have had to pay funeral costs.  She spiralled into depression and her marriage nearly broke up.  They told no one except their family and us...

When we found we were going to have another child, we contacted the credit card people, the banks etc and told them I would be going on mat leave and could not afford to pay for a while.  They would not listen.  We asked to work something out, they would not listen.  So we claimed bankruptcy and they had no choice but to listen.  Unlike our friends, when we found we were in the same situation, I told anyone that wanted to know how things were.  I was open with my friends and I found out more than one had been through bankruptcy in the past, but had kept it quiet.  There is so much shame attached, but in an economy like the one we have today, really, it is nothing to be ashamed of.  Banks take you for everything they can while you are on the up, but as soon as you are down they don't want to know.

It was the best thing we ever did.  18 months later, we are coming to the end of the 21 month period, and we have not paid the full amount, we will likely be paying something every month for another year to fully clear it, but the point is, there is a light at the end of the tunnel.  There is always a way, and you can get through, you just have to breathe deeply and be honest, with your self and with others.  Shit happens!  and it happens to good people.  We struggled for 3 years on hardly anything when we moved to Canada.  We went without meals to feed our child.  I wore boots with holes in for a full winter, arrived at work with soaking wet feet in minus 40 degrees to make sure she was warmly clothed.  We tried.... but sometimes something just has to give.  We live in interesting times and sometimes it can be a curse, but it can be a blessing too...  We became a closer family because of it.  We became less materialistic....  We came to understand what was important, what wasn't, when to fight, and when to admit defeat and ask for help.

With depression you can get a pill to help you feel better, but with financial worries you have to ask for help.... not to borrow money, but real help in sorting it out.  In a year, we will be done. We will have a terrible credit rating for a few years, but we will have no more debt.  We will have spare cash to pay for new clothes, dance and guitar lessons for our kids, pizza night, date night, maybe even a holiday.  These are things so many people take for granted, but really, most of us are only 2 pay cheques away from disaster.

Our friends lost their home in the end.....  but from bad things come good.  They moved back to their hometown on the other side of Canada, they are close to their family again, they are done their bankruptcy and both have stable jobs.... they have pizza night and the occasional vacation.... they are happy.... they had their interesting times and now they know what is important again....

So my message after all this.  Embrace adversity.  Revel in the Interesting Times in which we live.  For every time of hardship we enter there is a time of peace as we leave it.  Every rain storm finishes with a rainbow.  The bigger the storm, the more vibrant the rainbow is.  As Christmas approaches, don't worry about what you don't have, treasure what you do, and most of all, be true and allow others into you life so they can help you and you can help them....

My name is Lisa and it has been a month since my last confession...

Well, not confession as such, but really, what is a blog if not a chance to expunge our soul and psyche of all the floating doubts and lingering guilt trips that we take ourselves on daily.

Since my last post, the feeling I have had of my own impending mortality has become stronger, and is now accompanied by pain, and lots of it.  What started as a niggle here and a niggle there, has become in a month a mind numbing assault of aches and stabbing sensations everywhere between chest and thigh level.  My whole lower back and abdomen is rebelling against me and I have no idea of the cause, so I am to visit the doctor in a couple of days.

Of course, I did the worst thing any person could do on getting pains, I consulted the internet.... never ever consult the internet with the intention of making a self diagnosis.... you will ALWAYS be dying of cancer!!  ALWAYS!!

Of course, I could be, but that is not the point.  I don't know what it is causing the pains.  It could be kidney stones, ovarian cysts, IBS (otherwise a very bad case of gas!), really any number of things, but of course what it now is, in my head, thanks to the internet, is Ovarian Cancer.  A cancer which kills more than half of the people who get it and therefore my prophetic feelings of doom are coming to pass.

But really, I am trying to talk myself out of this.  There is absolutely no history of cancer in my family, I am 36 so not in the prime age group to get it, I took the combined pill for 10 years which hugely lowers the risk, I have 2 children, both delivered by c-section, the second only being a year ago, so you'd have thought they would have noticed while they were in there if anything was not looking right.

Of course, that always brings up the other option - they left a foreign object in me at the c-section....  again, it has been over a year so probably would have shown up by this point....

The problem is that I do not know what is wrong, and I hate that!  I hate not knowing why something is happening.  I hate not being able to stop it.  I hate having to rely on a doctor to get enough information from my garbled list of symptoms that they will send me for the correct round of tests in order to successfully come to a correct diagnosis.  I hate not being in control.....

I am a control freak.....  there, that is my confession.  My wonderful husband used to call me Monica when we were first living together, after Monica from Friends.  My fridge magnets were symetrical.  My CD's and DVD's were alphabetised, and catalogued, my books were grouped alphabetically, by author and then by date released.....  Yep!  Control freak!

Now, with children (and a husband) in my life, my house is in chaos.  My books, cd's and dvd's are routinely removed from the shelves and strewn about the floor by my one year old.  My 6 year old has claimed most of the fridge magnets and they serve the purpose of displaying her artistic efforts for the viewing public as they pass through my kitchen.

As I worry about my health, I appreciate that chaos more.  We went camping at the weekend and the kids were covered in dirt head to toe from arriving friday to leaving sunday.  My 6 year old got through 6 sets of clothes in 2 days and still came home in dirty ones.  It was wonderful.

This weekend, we have played outside, the girls have had their playpool and ball pit out and I have been trying to find the flower beds under the weeds, and it has been wonderful to watch them play, carefree, dirty, no tv, no computer, just a bit of water, a few toy boats and some plastic balls in an inflatable car.  Last night, we sat and watched the first Harry Potter movie together.  I was nearly sent mad by the "who's he", "what's going to happen". What's going to happen now", What just happened" questioning, but we made it to the end, and she wants to watch the rest with me now - we'll see...  she's only 6 and the early ones aren't to scary but the later ones may just be too much for her I think, she is a delicate girl emotionally.

Today, I am finally getting on with that Will, and trying to up my insurance, just in case, but mainly, I am trying to make memories with my girls.  Whether I die next year or in 50 years, I want to be sure that every day spent with them is not wasted but enjoyed and treasured to the full. What blessings children are.  We see ourselves in their young faces, remember the innocence and joy of our youth and how quickly we wanted to be grown, and now we are, how much we would give to return to those happy easy days of childhood.  I wonder how much they will remember when they are grown, and if they will find the same memories crossing their minds as the splash and play with their own children in their gardens.....  I hope so....