The past fortnight in (not so) brief June 23, 2009

Okay then, if you insist:

– We’re moving outta this place in exactly 7 days. The good news is we’ve actually pretty much sorted out all of our stuff. The bad news is that the place is thus a complete and utter catastrophe, boxes of stuff here, suitcases, there, kids’ attitudes strewn about the lounge-room like spaghetti. Young Master Boob has regressed to toddler-dom, choosing to throw tantrums daily (this whole Canadian summer with 18 hours of daylight certainly doesn’t help things on the sleep front) and even placing his noodles strategically over the carpet today. A lady who came to pick up some donated kids’ items today shook her head at me, smiled and said: “Bless your heart. You’re a braver woman than I am, I could NEVER do it with small kids.” I just laughed it off and didn’t really think about what she meant. But after tonight? Okay, okay. I get it.

– Mister Boob finishes up teaching tomorrow – we were in his classroom today helping him to start packing stuff up and I found myself getting really emotional about him saying goodbye. He hasn’t even told his kids yet that he’s leaving the country, I think mainly because a) he was advised to leave it as late as possible so as to not cause anxiety in them and b) he himself has been somewhat in denial about the fact that we’re going. I actually feel upset for the little munchkins; saying goodbye can be hard enough, let alone having it suddenly sprung on you that you’re not going to be seeing your teacher in all likelihood – for years, if not EVER AGAIN. Am I just being melodramatic?

– I’ve pretty much sorted out our road-trip now and I cannot wait, even though I’m a little daunted by burning out on the road. But we have opted to take a slightly less frantic itinerary, in fact, omitting quite a few points of interest that sans kids, would have been high on my priority list. But this time round we figured better to take it slow and spend more time in fewer places so we might actually enjoy the journey, rather than trying to squeeze in absolutely everything at a crazy pace. I definitely do NOT want to spend every minute in a car with kids, especially now that for some bizarre reason, our van has decided that it will never allow us to open it’s main passenger door again. Aye aye aye…anyhoo, so we’re going all through BC all the way to Vancouver, then down to Seattle, back up through the States to the faboosh Nelson, then back to the Bow Valley til early August, whereupon I begin my Fringe show run in Calgary. Speaking of which…

– My solo show for Calgary Fringe is coming along BEEEEEAUTifully. So, so happy. It’s the first time I’ve ever really focused on narrative – Dennis Cahill, Artistic Director of Loose Moose, has been so fantastic helping me nut it out. So far we’ve just been working on the structure, just talking through key relevant events in my life and having his spin on it and how it all fits together has been both enlightening and affirming. Seriously, I don’t think I’ve EVER been this excited about performing anything. It’s also been so great just to finally see the fruits of my Banff Centre Residency beginning to bud. That was a lot tougher than I thought, i.e. during the residency itself, you’re very much in the initial stages of bringing this new work into life and sometimes it can feel like nothing’s really happening at all – like you’re just pontificating and not really producing anything and oh my goodness, what if I finish this whole residency at come out with NOTHING TO SHOW FOR IT? So now, months later, to see the pennies beginning to drop and it all coming together, is just such a great lesson in itself in trusting in the creative process. However frustratingly slow it may seem.

(PS If you are in the Calgary area you can come check out the show here.

Oh and HUUUGE props to my lovely and amazing and fellow Heathers fan Jennifer Bain for creating this amazing concuction that is my show poster. I quite simply cannot put it any better than Gollum: WE LOVES IT!

– Littlest Boob continues his quest to be crowned best baby in the entire galaxy – I seriously can’t believe how lucky I am. I keep waiting for the bubble to burst. He’s just so scrummy, he makes me want to have a million babies. Hmmm. One to add to the to-do list.

 

Yay! Officially updated! I feel so accomplished! What’s next? More facebooking? SEE HOW ACCOMPLISHED I AM!

This time a half decade ago… May 15, 2009

2 days old

…my darling little ball of wacky loveliness and hilarity, Little Master Boob, made his extremely chilled out entrance into the world. It was probably the last time I saw him calm.

It’s almost hard to believe he’s the same person, looking back at his bubba photos. Or rather, it’s hard to believe that there was a time when I didn’t really know him all that well. Fast forward five years and I’ve come to know, love (and yes, be driven crazy by) his quirky personality, his zest for life and his unabashed passion for making people laugh. Honestly, there are very few people who can crack me up the way my little man does. From his complete inability to speak a sentence without punctuating every syllable with a superhero move, to his incredible confidence in crowds – at our very first soccer team meeting, he stood up in front of everybody to introduce himself and uttered loudly: “My name is Caleb and I’m four and I love tennis and I love soccer. And this is my little brother and his favourite game is sleeping!”

Man I love this kid.

Happy birthday Mister Moops!

Rocking out in the Rockies April 13, 2009

Ah, Bow Valley. I have missed you to be sure. When we left here you see, it was at unbelievably short notice, with Master Boob having scored a teaching job just south of Calgary and due to start in a few days, we literally got the phone call in late August and started packing up the house a couple of hours later. As we digested the sudden end to this chapter of life, we took the kids to the soccer field and kicked a ball around – I stared up at the amazing mountains which had been our backdrop now for a year (as it turns out, to the DAY that we moved south) I felt a real pang of sadness and even anxiety as to whether we were doing the right thing.

Fast forward seven months or so and it turns out that we most certainly did. The construction industry here, which when we arrived was booming so strongly that Master Boob was able to pick up rather well-paid work in which they even trained him on the job, has since collapsed. Companies have declared bankruptcy, 800+ jobs (or so I’ve been told) in the industry have disappeared and shock…horror…tradespeople are actually advertising for work. In short, if we had stayed here, we would have been completely financially screwed.

But we now are in the very privileged position of being able to return here as our home away from home. Catching up with beautiful sights and beautiful people. Thus our Easter break has pretty much comprised visiting friends, sharing lunches, brunches and everything in between, not one, not two, but FOUR separate easter egg hunts, an Easter kids’ party in Banff, playing Texas Hold Em at nights with the odd breastfeed thrown in for good measure.

I am so utterly delighted at how cruisy Littlest Boob is, such that we can embark on holidays, travel trips and the like with him perfectly content to adapt to wherever we happen to be. Rock. One of the things I love most about the newborn phase. Ooh, I’m savouring it this time around, that’s for sure: I ain’t wishing away nothin!

Tomorrow Little Mister Boob is going to his preschool buddy’s house for an eagerly anticipated all-day playdate, while Master Boob, Little Miss, Littlest and I will be heading up the mountain for what will in all likelihood be our one and only snowboarding session of the season. Master and I shall take turns manning Littlest B in the lodge, while Little Miss will be skiing with us all day I suspect. We woke up this morning to the fastest falling snow we’ve ever seen in our whole time in Canada – the timing could not be better!

Hopefully the only shrieks echoing down the canyon tomorrow day-time will be accompanied by limbs flailing with elation, not pain.

How to make – and lose – a friend in 2 minutes. April 2, 2009

One of the things about moving countries is that you suddenly fully realise the value of those you left behind, given that now, your social circle has deflated into more of a saggy hexagon of minute proportions.

When we first arrived in Canada, once the initial novelty had worn off (i.e. I managed to stop giggling like a drunken 80-year-old at a wedding every time I glimpsed a mountain, which, living in a mountain town at the time, was pretty damn often), I was suddenly struck by a horrible thought: that mountains, however spectacular, can’t hug you back. Barbara Streisand might have thought it lucky, but right then and there, being a person who needed people felt mighty crapola.

I realised this might be a problem when I found myself staring at random strangers in the park, imagining a future with them that included barbeques, our kids frolicking together tantrum-free while we clinked our beer bottles together and toasted the sunset while a pint-sized Julie Andrews serenaded from a nearby squirrel hole…

Seriously, sometimes it was all I could do to muster the strength to go up to such strangers, wrap my arms around their legs and scream while they dragged me away: “PLEASE BE MY FRIEND!”

Then of course, time passed, I made some real friends and what do you know? I didn’t even need to stalk.

Then we moved towns though, and so it all started again. We’re four months into our new abode and while I’ve definitely started making some really nice connections with people, there’s still plenty of room for more!

Which is why today, while heading for our car in the carpark of the hospital, I was pleasantly surprised to be smiled at, waved at and then approached by a british lady I kinda recognised…

“We were in the same room together!” she cried.

It clicked. We shared a hospital room when Littlest Boob popped out some six weeks ago.

“Oh yeah!” I said. “How’s it going?”

We laughed and compared the trials and triumphs of having three kids, her older two being quite a bit younger than mine (3 under 4 – AGH!). It was such an easy conversation, you know when you just really genuinely gel with somebody straight up? I was just beginning to think again upon squirrelly Julie Andrews when Little Miss Boob pipes up with:

“Mummy, how do you know her?”

“We shared a room when Littlest Boob was born.”

A moment.

“OH!!! Is SHE the one who’s baby wouldn’t stop screaming all night and kept you awake?”

A beat. I muttered something like “Well our baby was up through the night too…” but Little Miss was having none of being dismissed.

“Yeah but only because HER baby kept screaming and waking him up!”

The fact that this observation is true, is completely beside the point. Having it blurted out, in front of my potential pal no less (who I already felt pretty sure would have felt crap about her noisy newborn in a shared room way back when it all happened) – well, it’s not that I wanted to die as such, but I wouldn’t have minded being knocked out for a good ten minutes.

And evidently, she who I shall now refer to as ‘The Friend that Never Was’, wouldn’t have minded it either. She quickly grabbed her bub out of her car, said “Well, bye then!” and went on her way.

Ah boy. Remind me never to let Little Miss Boob go into the match-making industry…

Dude, this is gonna be harder than I thought March 31, 2009

Okay, so today officially marks day one of our training. Last week we deemed much more of a ‘warm up’ week, in which we would ease our way into our new regime, which is not only quite jam-packed to say the least, but requires a virtual Masters degree in time management, thanks to juggling three kidlets (one of them newborn) and virtually no babysitting.

So part of this, I thought, could work if I could simply find a way to fit some of my runs into my daily routine with the kids. This seemed a reasonable plan too: Little Miss Boob is already well into the whole idea and quite a little runner herself, we have a dog that needs to be walked so to up the pace seems just a bonus, we have a stroller for Littlest Boob which can just be pushed faster and in dire straits, used as a crutch to prevent collapse, and Little Master Boob can ride his bike ahead of us to set the pace.

Oh yes, in theory: grand.

In reality: first of all, the little issue of residue snow on the footpath. One thing I’ve never had to deal with in any of my 5-minute fitness crazes in Oz. The frustration this involved in both pushing the pram and riding the bike led to problem #2, specifically, Little Mister Boob deciding five minutes into our outing that he didn’t want to ride his bike at all, but indeed, wanted to RUN.

Yes, that’s right: run. He who trails behind us further and further on every family walk we ever embark upon, he who must be bribed into even completing said walk with the promise of hot chocolate and/or milkshakes (weather depending), he who could quite forseeably complete a PhD in dawdling…HE wants to RUN.

And so my delightful supermummy jog becomes an exercise in pushing the pram through chunks of snow, while trying to pull back the over-eager dog (who is now trying to catch up with the kids) and towing Little Master’s bike with my other arm, all while walking at a snail’s pace. Indeed, probably the only actual real exercise of value I got was my hamstrings stretching as I bent down to pick up after the dog.

This is the day that I realised: it’s not just the triathlon that’s gonna be a challenge. If I can actually get through my training plan in any given week, THAT is gonna be worth a freaking medal.

Bring it.