Growing Pains

My son has a simple concussion.  So said the emergency room doctor.  P was sitting on a bench in the gym at school, bent over to tie his skates, getting ready to enjoy the outdoor rink with his classmates, when the kid sitting across from him managed to whack him on the bridge of his nose with his skate blade, which was covered with a skateguard THANK GOD.   I don’t know how one’s foot can accidentally come up suddenly and so hard that it nearly knocked P unconscious, but it did….especially when the foot in question is attached to the body of a child known to be more than a handful.    I guess it’s not that hard to imagine  a class of 10-year-olds fidgeting around, anxious to get out on the rink, one can easily picture a kid sitting there, dangling his legs, waiting for the teacher’s all-clear to go outside, trying hard to be patient, then….WHACK! 

P said he fell forward, then couldn’t remember what happened or what people were saying.     The secretary called me at work, explained what happened, that his nose was very purple and he was in pain.  On the way there, I mentally prepared myself to what I might see (she hadn’t mentioned blood, so that was good), and I set my face in an expression of tender motherly concern, with my mouth glued in the form of a gentle, it’s-gonna-be-alright smile.  If the injury was horrible, I didn’t want P to be shocked by my shock.  

But it wasn’t as bad as I was expecting……his nose seemed somewhat swollen, but apparently the swelling had gone down quite a bit thanks to an ice-pack.  He was sleepy, though, and dizzy, and had blurry vision….time to head to the hospital.   In the end, the doctor declared him neurologically-sound, and that the concussion symptoms should clear up within the week. 

P’s injury today brought back the time when my daughter G choked on a rubber toy a few years ago….that was an ambulance ride we won’t soon forget.  http://crrz07.wordpress.com/2007/08/01/deja-vu/ .    

I’m afraid I really didn’t have any direction that I wanted to take by writing this post, nor do I have any particular message or life-lesson.   No rhyme or reason.   I just needed to write this out.  It’s been a very emotional  walk in the Parenting Park lately, one that is testing my motherhood mettle.  My daughter G has been feeling the consequences  of making bad choices, which means that I’m the one making her feel those consequences.  Tomorrow morning, her father & I meet with her teacher to discuss G’s behaviour at school (it’s a little jarring to hear several teachers tell you that G is not the girl they know her to be).  I’ve decided not to give a detailed account of what’s been happening in the past six weeks, because I don’t think I would feel too good if my mother blogged about my behaviour to the whole world.    Let’s just say that  pre-teens are a whole different animal.  

I can’t be sure that I’m ready though.   I’ve gone through some heavy thinking lately, as opposed to heavy drinking, to which heavy thinking about family life can sometimes lead to; thankfully not in my case (but I’ve thought about it!).  Anyhow, back to my heavy thinking about being a parent…..so I cycle around & around the block of guilt, spinning my wheels….I return to the fountain of regret and soak long enough to watch my toes turn into wrinkly raisins…. I run through the forest of anger (at myself, at God, and ultimately back at myself)……Then, tired & spent,  I sulk in the What-Did-I-Do-To-Deserve-This sandbox.  

Our children really are like gifts…..when you open a gift, you have no idea what’s in it.  What if it’s something you don’t really like?  We don’t select our kids like we select a pair of shoes or a box of chocolates.   We accept our children graciously, through Grace, with Grace, because of Grace…..and we do our best to love them through all of the joys, pains, triumphs and disappointments.   

Because for them, we are also like a gift……children can’t choose their parents any more than parents can choose their children.   With Grace, we can help our children grow into the gifts that they are.  And hope that we become the parents that they need. 

 

Love,

Chantal xoxoxoxo

The Bridger

I like this guy.  I’ve been keeping it on the down-low, but I really like this guy.   I haven’t read any of his books, and I don’t really plan on it, but I’ve followed his ascent to the White House with a distant fascination.    Yesterday, the news covered revellers in Toronto during the inauguration ceremony being held in Washington, with the reporter commenting something to the effect that Canadians wished for someone like Obama to run for the top job in Canada.    That about sums it up for me. 

Regretfully, I only caught parts of the inauguration speech on the news last night after work, but what I heard in those seconds-long sound bites brought tears to my eyes.  I even wept a little this morning as I read the transcript of his speech.        

I say I was fascinated from a distance with the Barack Obama campaign.  We’ve watched the American election closely in our household, my husband being American, and both of us being interested in politics.  There was a shift in opinion at some point, however, which caused other opinions to be kept more or less to oneself, for fear of offending or putting the other on the defensive.    Best to listen attentively and try to gain understanding from where the other is coming from, and to run potentially controversial arguments in your own head.   As in parenting, so it goes in a marriage…..you have to choose your battles.   Hence the fascination from a distance…..

 I was elated that Barack Obama won, because not only did he defeat a “My-way-or-the-highway” regime, he did it by stirring passions and giving hope to people of a country rapidly losing respect for itself and losing the respect of the rest of the world.   By renewing people’s confidence in elected leaders, he gave people confidence in themselves that they can accomplish great and important things.   Not that it matters what I thought, I’m a Canadian, living in Canada.  But not everyone in our household was feeling it for Obama.    Upon Obama’s election victory, the reluctant concession to his winning was tempered with giving cautious congratulations, with the hope that Obama could live up to the hype.  

Much has been said all over creation about Barack Obama’s lack of experience.  Here’s what I think:  Lack of experience does not indicate lack of wisdom or confidence, and certainly not lack of ability.   Nor does having experience indicate wisdom and confidence, or ability to do the job at hand.   A good leader knows you can’t do it all by yourself and chooses people who will offer their own experience, wisdom, and support to help move the country forward. 

In our own elections here in Canada,  there’s a lot of strategic voting that goes on.  I admit that I have voted for a certain party, not so much because I believe in what they say or purport to represent, but because I don’t like what the ruling party has done or could do if it gets voted in.  This doesn’t make me feel very good, because I’m electing someone who represents the lesser of two (or four, in Canada) evils.    But if I was an American and had the duty and privilege of voting in this recent election, I would have voted Barack Obama hands down.  Not only would  I have had an opportunity to join my voice with millions of others to send the ne0-cons packing, but I would finally have the personal satisfaction of voting  for a person who demonstrates integrity and vision.     

We all know he’s got monumental challenges ahead of him.  It’s redundant to say this and it serves no purpose to state the obvious.  I’m sure he’s quite aware of what he’s facing.  But have you noticed something?  President Obama is up for it.  Not only is he up for it,  but with his confidence and charisma, he inspires others to do the same, to rise up to the challenges we face in this world.  He’s a bridger, bringing people together, polarizing citizens and making use of people’s desire for a better world.  He capitalizes on hope, not fear.    Can you say that about any  leader of any country? 

Mr. President, you have captured the imagination of millions in your country and around the world.   As I saw footage of the crowds waiting for you in Washington, I thought to myself:  Imagine all the people that are there, waiting to hear you speak.  Imagine what that experience will be like for them.  Imagine all the good that will come from those people, when they go back to their homes, how they will be inspired and how they will take that inspiration and turn it into millions of acts of change and hope.   Things that most people will never hear about, things that might take years to realize, but things which will have positive, profound effects on society.   I cannot think of ever feeling this way  about politics in my own country, of being motivated and inspired,  and knowing that good things will come.   

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…..dialogue continues, open minds save the day.  As we watched images of the crowds in Washington and news coverage of the inauguration, I wondered how my  husband felt, seeing such open displays of optimism and joy.   Myself, I was filled with pride for these people, and felt as much a part of it all, despite not being American.   

I often hear of how the United States of America has lost respect from other countries, how the media focuses on its shortcomings and on all the negativity that the US  perpertrates throughout the world,  how the good that America does is often swept aside or overshadowed by warmongerers and greed.    I think this 44th presidency is the turning point that will shift the tide of popular feeling and opinion, taking  energy from past glories to forge ahead with a new purpose.  

This 44th presidency is  the bridger.

God bless America.

Love,

Chantal

Gardasil’s Net Widens

Back in the news again, Merck & Co is now wanting to have this vaccine available to women 27 to 45 years old.   Here are the latest links:

http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2009/01/09/gardasil-fda.html#articlecomments

 http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/cancer/gardasil.html

 http://www.merck.com/newsroom/press_releases/product/2009_0109.html

I am continually amazed at the speed at which this vaccine has passed legislation in ANY country.   Then again, consider this:  Merck & Co.  has to fill its coffers somehow after the Vioxx debacle, so what better way than to develop and market (emphasis on market) a vaccine as one that MAY prevent cervical cancer, lobby governments around the world to make it mandatory for school age-girls, create fear and guilt campaigns, charge $360 a pop, AND I’ m not done.  In the United States, any girl or woman between the ages of 9 and 26 is obligated to have this vaccine before she can obtain her Green Card.   If she is not vaccinated against a form of cancer, her application will be denied.   The cancer itself is not a communicable disease, unlike AIDS or tuberculosis or Hepatitis-B.  Yet you’re required by law to be vaccinated against possibly developing cervical cancer.   But the 4 strains that can cause this type of cancer ARE transmitted sexually….but THAT part is kept on the low-down.  Why is that?  I’ll save my opinions on that for another post because it’s a very hot potato, and you know me, I burn water, so what I have to say on that part of the issue needs to be thought out a little more.

So now, Merck & Co  has one target group, the 9-to-26-year-olds.  Cha-ching!    They’ve managed to include potential immigrant populations (I only know of the US that has adopted this policy in their immigration rules, I haven’t verified any other country).  Cha-ching-ching!!    Now they are on the cusp of adding the next target group, the 27-to-45-year-olds.   Cha-ching-ching-ching!!!!!

And what better group than this to market an “anti-cancer” vaccine to (even if that’s not what it is):  women, most of them working, lots with children, at a time in their lives where they are concerned with their health and well-being and  that of their families and friends, in an age in history where the cancer bogeyman lurks in all that we eat and drink, all that we touch and breathe in. 

I’ve created a page in the sidebar called Gardasil, and will keep adding as time goes on.  What I say about this topic is my opinion.  I don’t pretend to know more than the next person, nor do I dicate anyone to get their child vaccinated or not.  I don’t stand in judgement of anyone who does, or of anyone who doesn’t.    If I say anything, it’s this:  Keep informed, look at the big picture, take care of yourself and those you’re responsible for, get a regular Pap test if you’re a woman, and listen to your intuition.

Love,

Chantal xoxoxo

No Sudden Movements

Note to reader: This recounts a dream I had last night and might creep you out.  As it did me.  I needed to write about it asap, though.  So thanks for being my early-morning sounding board. 

I am walking home, home being the variety store my parents had when I was 10 to 14 years old or so.  I’m the age I am now, 41.  In real life, there’s a school across the street from where our store was.  In my dream, the school has been replaced by houses going up vertically from the store, rather than horizontally.  So that as I’m walking down, I see 6 or seven houses on my right, then at the end of the street, I see my parents’ store. 

The houses that I pass are  two-storey run down places, junk out in the yards, broken windows.  They’re eerily quiet.  From one of them, a young guy comes out, tall & heavy-set, maybe in his early twenties.  He’s wearing dark pants & a white hoodie zipped up with maybe some red design on the front, but nothing I can decipher.  He talks to me but I don’t know what he’s saying except that I get the feeling that he wants me to come in.  He seems a little strange, and because I don’t want to agitate him, I follow him in.  We pass through another door to a room with no windows.  There are high pieces of furniture in the room, and in the corner there’s an old TV set playing.  I can’t see the TV from where I stand, and at this point, I’m just standing in this darkened room with this guy who’s just looking at me kind of weird.  I slowly walk over to the corner where the TV is, and across from it is an empty chair.  I was half-expecting something else, like discovering a dead old woman’s body sitting there,  but that’s all it was, just an empty chair.  I’m uneasy the whole time and I feel I’m moving like Woody in Cheers when he walks in the bar covered in bees, saying “No sudden movements…..no sudden movements.” 

I slowly make my way to a door as he follows me.  I go to leave down the stairs, and he gets close enough to touch my hair and says: “Your hair smells like your mother, wounded.”  After he says this, I realize that he’s been saying the words “wound” and “wounded” while we were standing in that room, except I wasn’t hearing him then.

I walk down the stairs, slowly, feeling fear grip my chest.  I walk past two cars parked on the lawn, and not wanting to  cause him alarm or set him off after me, I kind of toss a smile over my shoulder in his direction and say something stupid like “Nice car”.   Fighting the urge to run, I make my way to my parents’ store, which in my dream looks nothing at all like it did in real life.  When I get through the door, I lock it, panicking and trying to kick my shoes off.  My father is old, sitting in a rocking chair in the living room, which has a picture window overlooking the houses.  I’m scared and I scream ”All those houses are f*cked!”  In real life, I never ever would have used foul language when speaking to my father.  In the dream, he turned to look at me in his quiet way, but didn’t say anything.   During this time, I have this feeling of needing to tell my father what happened, it was actually more like an urge, a deep need.  I took myself to the bathroom and ran a bath.  While soaking, I was trying to figure out how I would tell my father that I entered this person’s house for no good reason.  Surely he would say what an idiot I was, and how stupid can you be, it’s asking for trouble.   I could hear my mother stirring from her nap and she too was old in my dream.  I could hear them talking to each other about me, my father telling her I got home all upset.  It was as if they had aged, and I had too, but we were still living as we were when I was a kid. 

I had this dream last night between 1am & 3am, and I woke up from it feeling upset and scared about that guy.  He had dead eyes, you know?   And his facial expressions were either stone-faced or some weird creepy smile.   But it was what he said to me, about my hair like my mother, wounded.  It’s like some bizarre code, or a secret that can unlock something else.  Like a Pandora’s box. 

Stay tuned for my thoughts on this.  I’ll let it ruminate for a little while, but not for long.  I can already sense some meaning from it. 

Til then, I wish YOU, dear reader, sweeter dreams,

Love, Chantal xoxooxxo

She’s On Fire!

Rejoice by Monica Stewart

     http://www.art.com/asp/sp-asp/_/pd–10044808/sp–A/igid–829566/Rejoice.htm?sOrig=CAT&sOrigID=0&ui=3DA7391EA93143699B9114C22CC7A8B2

I slept last night!  Halleluja!!!!  Nearly 7 hours of sleep, with only one interruption.   I woke up this morning with renewed optimism in life (renewed optimism…..does optimism ever get old?).   Overwhelmishness was at bay, Self-Acceptance said a shy good morning, Regret and Guilt were buried (for now) underneath the To-Do List (which seemed more manageable after getting more than 2 hours of sleep).   Life is good.   Does this happen to you, when life is good?  You have these feel-good songs running through your head, as if you were on top of the world and nothing can get you down?  Songs like……

I Can See Clearly Now The Rain Is Gone…..Doo Doo Doo Doo….I Can See All Obstacles In My Way……

I like that song. 

But when I’m feeling pretty good about myself, I have Train’s “She’s On Fire” playing in my head.  Train is one of my most favourite bands, and when Pat Monahan sings “Well it’s not just a daydream if you decide to make it your life“ from that song, it gives me the mental lift I need sometimes to take care of business.   (Note to self:  To balance the emotionality of the overwhelmishness, remember to  use music more often than chocolate.) 

Anyhow, I’m flitting around the kitchen, it’s 7:30am, and I’ve got great tunes going on in my head, “She’s On Fire” being one of them.   I’m still in my ratty old bathrobe, the one I debated tossing before Mr. C moved in a few months ago, for fear of shattering his goddess image of me.  In the end, I decided to keep the bathrobe, confident that he’d love me no matter how I look in the morning, which he does.  ( Although he did mention something, now that I think of it….he asked if maybe I would like a new bathrobe for Christmas…..hmmmm.)

So I’m making lunches, getting breakfast together, planning my day out, etc etc.  You know, the usual morning kitchen stuff that everyone clad in their bathrobes do.  I put a pot of water on the stove and fire up the gas burner.  She’s on fire…..She’s on fire….I hum as I get my son’s lunch together while I wait for the water to boil.    She’s on fire…..She’s on fire….

I return to the pot, and smell something burning.   I stop humming.   I think, Wait a minute….Water doesn’t burn (althought I could probably attempt that feat, no problem).  I quickly shut the gas off, and then I see smoke rising….from….where?  Inside the oven?   Pulling open the oven door, I realize OMYGOSH it’s my bathrobe sleeve that’s sparking smoking singeing!!!    I bat out the flames (Ok, they weren’t flames….yet) and dance into the living room to the bewildered amusement of   Mr. C and my son, who don’t know what to make of this sudden inflamed crazy woman.  I’m sure Mr. C thought I needed more sleep, or that I had fibbed about sleeping well the night before…people who are sleep-deprived do strange things. 

It was over in mere seconds, but my bathrobe bore the evidence of something that could have been much worse.   I stood in the kitchen with Mr. C, looking at the trail of scorch marks on my robe, feeling like a kook.

“Good thing I didn’t ask for a new bathrobe for Christmas…..”

I thought about my bathrobe today, hanging on the back of my door, and maybe I should replace it with a new one.  But I think I’ll hang on to it a little longer, singe marks and all.   Worn and woven into the green terrycloth fabric, my trusty bathrobe has signs of a life lived and of dreams realized.  And now it proudly bears singe marks to remind me of the morning when my soul was singing and a fire lit my creativity.  Literally.

Love,

Chantal xoxoxoxo