I’ve just spent 13 months working on secondment – by this mean I took a temporary position, while my permanent position was held for me. I applied for the temporary position because it would be good experience for my career, but mainly because I’d be 25 minutes from home, 20 minutes from daycare. An additional bonus was that I had every third Friday off, where I was able to carve out some space for self-care and errands.

I’m going back next week. I’m giving up a short commute and easier access to the kids, I’m giving up time for myself. But I’m going back to my job, my home position, because it’s the right thing to do – it’s a job that challenges and pushes me. The pace is faster. I miss my team and my manager. I miss being downtown in the city.  I learned a lot but I want to go back.

I hope that with the other changes we are trying to make – most of all, moving house – that I’ll be able to regain some of the benefits I’ve enjoyed over the past year.

It was tougher than I thought it would be to say goodbye to my coworkers this week. Even though I’ll still see them or talk to them once in a while, as I’m not leaving, just changing offices.

Today is my last day at the secondment.

**

Oliver starts senior kindergarten on Tuesday. He’s been looking forward to it all summer, because he knew that he’d get to go every day this year – our school will be implementing full time kindergarten.

Last year he went to junior kindergarten every other day, and on the off days, we’d have tears because he just wanted to go to school.

He had a fantastic teacher last year, one who knew how to perfectly balance learning and play. That classroom was so happy and fun. I hope that he has as good an experience this year.

I wish I knew more about what was happening this year, actually – there’s be no communication from the school at all.  Thankfully I am able to take him myself on Tuesday and figure out what’s going on.

Today is his last full day at daycare. He’ll still go before and after school (the bus picks him up and drops him off), and PA days – but Callum and Oliver will definitely be seeing less of each other. I think, in their case, absence will make the heart grow fonder. I hope.

**

There’s other beginnings and endings swirling around us right now: new babies, a summer of soccer ending, the talk of grandparents moving to care homes, the loss (through sale) of the memory-laden homes of those grandparents. It feels like the right time of year to reflect on these things, to have these things happen - the beginning of September probably feels more like New Year’s Day to me than January 1st does. Even when you don’t start school in September anymore yourself, the month remains a placeholder of the beginning. Or the end.

Goodbye summer. Goodbye temporary workplace. Hello school, packed lunches, train and subway commuting, and whatever else the next few months have in store.

It swept into our house suddenly, about four weeks ago, brought by outsiders. It was new. It was different than what had come before.

It has caused screaming and strife and tears. It’s the cause of many battles, small and large, between the little people who don’t like to share, and between the little people and the big people. It makes us late for things.

It hurts (if you step on it – or chuck it at someone).

It needs to be picked up all the time – when there’s a baby visiting, or a house viewing, or a dog that might eat it up.

It’s also brought creativity, more interactive play between children and adults, more quiet play in bedrooms, and more independence. I think we’ll let the Lego stick around.  I think we were all ready for it to hit.

(I feel like…UGH… I need to say this post is not a review; that I have not been compensated in any way, asked to talk about these toys, or provided with samples. Lego was first brought by houseguests, then Mark bought some no-name building blocks at Winners, and I bought the boys a box at the Lego store in NYC.)

We’ve spent most of this week dealing with a plague or two. Mark managed to come down with some nasty flu at the end of the weekend, and he’s pretty much been feverish in bed ever since. He’s never taken time off work sick that I can remember. He hasn’t been to work this week at all yet. Not sure about tomorrow.

Me, I avoided the man flu, but I did manage to get a pestilence of my own.  All week I’ve been suffering with the worst canker sores/mouth ulcers I’ve ever had. The inside of my bottom lip is…well…horrible. Times ten.

You know what irritates cankers? Oh, everything. Hot food, cold food, sour food, sweet food, food food. Teeth. Your tongue. Air. Words. You know, basic things that have to be in your mouth at some point during the day. I was suffering badly. I couldn’t take it anymore. I was beginning to want to rip half my face off.

I ended up asking for help – I had to. I asked twitter, where my @ replies suggested various remedies including unlit matches, salt water and over-the-counter stuff. All of these things hurt badly. I asked my mother. I asked my co-workers.

One co-worker came up with most magic soothing potion of all. Buttermilk. “Gargle with it,” she said, “like the salt water, but it won’t burn.” And it didn’t. And it doesn’t.

However, have you ever tried to drink buttermilk? It’s, um, an acquired taste.

Once upon a time, I worked in a group home for adults with developmental disabilities. Okay, that time was when I lived in Waterloo and was completing my Master’s degree. Make it about 2001.  One of the individuals who lived in the home absolutely adored sitting down with a big glass of buttermilk. If she’d had a bad day, or even a good day, it was her comfort food.

I drink my buttermilk now – actually, make that hold it in my mouth, not drink it – and I think of her. I wonder why she found this flavour of runny plain yogurt so good. She, too, found it soothing, but in a different way.

I’m happy to report that my mouth is improving, and I’ve been keeping buttermilk with me at work in case I eat something (tomatoes! damn you!) that irritates my mouth again. But I still have most of a carton left, so the logical next step might be buttermilk fried chicken. Or pancakes. Or muffins. Soothing, too, in a different way.

Emma’s delight.

Obligation can mean responsibility.

I’m sitting here, and I’m not entirely sure what to write. And that’s the worst kind of blog post for me. If I don’t have a clear idea, I come out with gibberish, or the completely mundane. That’s why I don’t blog as frequently as I used to. Because, honestly, back when there were babies at my feet or chest and I was writing a lot, it was crap, really.

This blog is here because sometimes I feel like I need to write, to process, to think. And that’s the main takeaway from BlogHer this year, from the closing keynote: I have a voice. I use my voice/should use my voice. There are a million different topics to discuss. But use (y)our power. You know what quote comes next, right? “With great power comes great responsibility“.

I just know that I feel some sort of weird obligation to provide my own summary of the conference, like that’s what you have to do if you go. So here I sit, feeling like I should write.

I met some people I was happy to meet. I didn’t go out of my way to be a fangirl for bloggers I love, like last year. In fact, there’s a couple that I know were there that I didn’t even see at all. I only squee’d a couple of times. If I squee’d at you, you are totally worth it.

I’m not going to write a lot here. Some other people have already done it for me. Yes, that’s it, I’m going to cheat! I’m going to link you to my three amazing room mates (I love these ladies, and now I’ve seen 2 of 3 of them naked from the waist up. Boom chicka wah wah).

I’ve also enjoyed recaps so far from Julie (lovely to meet her), Maggie (lovely to see her again), Neil (wish I had talked to him more) and Shannon (who I didn’t really meet but smiled at; more importantly, she knows how to capture the conference I was at).

Obligation can mean a sense of duty.

I think if you attend a conference where women have risked their lives to come and speak to you about how their speak out against injustice and crimes against humanity, where bloggers we all know bare their souls about grief and loss, where your fellow writers get a chance to speak on stage in front of hundreds of people and feature some of the blogosphere’s best work, you’d best be attending those sessions. I’m not normally a Judgey McJudgerson, but really? Did you have to go to a swag suite instead? Really? Really?

Obligation can mean a debt of gratitude.

I had an amazing time this weekend. I really did. It was so much better than I thought it would be. I spent most of my time hanging out with people that I could jump in my car and drive to see, whether 6 hours or a half hour away. And I loved them all, their bright faces and pretty dresses and hearty laughs.

Photo completely stolen from Nadine (scarbiedoll)

Some I knew sort of well. Some I didn’t know at all. I really did have the best time. We had a few neat adventures. And what a mental boost that is.
I went in swearing off attending any further BlogHer conferences, thinking I’d had enough. I’m not so sure now.

Maybe I feel a bit obligated. In the best possible way.

Ok, so, I put some numbers into random.org (1 to 10, ’cause 11 was a nice comment and not an entry) and this is what happened:

Congrats to Rebecca! I’ll be in touch.

It’s our 5th wedding anniversary today. I have no clue what to get Mark. And I’m not even home. I’m sleeping in a bed with Rebecca in NYC. Probably snuggling. Anyway.

In absence of a gift, I give Mark this, along with an IOU: the words to a song I hear, but don’t necessarily love. The words are right, though.

(Today, the words are right – next week I might hate him. Welcome to our marriage.)

The Stills: I’m With You

The timing’s right
And the light is soft
We’ve come from far
And we came here lost
We’re moving east
We’re rolling through
If you believe in me
I’ll believe in you
I’m with you
If you want me to

Explosives highs
To breakneck lows
Every mirror in
The house has broke
The moon is red
And the sky is green
In the loneliest place
You’ve ever been
I’m with you
If you want me to

A darkness shines
Through my airplane
Purple and bright
On my window pane
Be close to me
Be where I am
Where the wind is hard
Where the wind is hard
The night is blue

Last year I was sort of freaking out. Going to BlogHer in Chicago, pretty much by myself, not knowing hardly anyone. Excited at the prospect of sessions with speakers that I admired. A weekend away in a cool city. Parties. Swag. So many unknowns. I came back with some renewed sense of purpose, of opportunity, of clarity about blogging. I was so pleased to have met so many writers I admired.

This year? I’m chill. I’m not packed. I haven’t bought a bunch of new clothes. I don’t really care. I’m not sure I’m going for any other reason than a get away with friends (new and old) and I’m not actually sure that’s a good enough reason to be going to this conference.

I’ve been busy (AS USUAL – no really) with friends visiting from the UK, playing tourist with them, and still dealing with Callum’s broken elbow. His first cast is off tomorrow. Probably to be followed by a second cast.  Distracting enough that I haven’t really thought about my trip yet. Except to print up a few emails, and I finally found my passport tonight.

I’m curious what I’m going to think after this weekend away. I’m not as inspired by the session topics this year. I’m sort of fed up with a lot of the advertisements conversations I’m seeing on twitter. I think maybe, just maybe, I’ve had my fill of this. I’m not sure.

Don’t get me wrong – there are things I am looking forward to. A hotel room full of friends. New friends to met.  Others to see again. Four days in NYC. Four days of no bedtime routines with the kids. A party full of Canadian blogg(h)ers. Another party with Martha Stewart (or at least her staff!) – how random and weird and cool is that?!

So we’ll see. Hope to see you there, some of you reading this. Not,  you know, my mother. No offense, mother.

PS: while I’m away, if you are Canadian, you can enter a giveaway for a $25 iTunes card, on this post about My Living Stories iPhone/iPod touch apps.

So if you follow me on twitter or are my friend on Facebook, you already know what happened Sunday night: Oliver and Callum were goofing off on the couch (somersaults and jumping and all sorts), and I got up to cook dinner while singing my favourite song “one of you is going to get hurrrrrrrt”, and then one of them DID get hurt. Oliver pushed Callum off the couch (so they say; I didn’t even see it) and somehow he broke his elbow.

Little tiny boy in a big cast kind of makes me want to weep.

We were really lucky to only spend about 2.5 hours in the Emergency department on Sunday night, from start to finish.  Callum was in obvious pain, Oliver was way too interested in all the other patients and their ills, and I was on my own with them.

It’s times like these, times when we are stuck, like on a plane for 14 hours a couple of weeks ago, or waiting for an x-ray, like Sunday, that I am so thankful for my iPod touch.  I mean, I adore the thing anyway. I probably love it too much. When there’s wi-fi, I have a constant connection to email and twitter. I can sit outside with the kids and read the news.

In desperate times, I let the kids play with it (otherwise, they leave it alone on threat of death…). We recently discovered Talking Carl, and they’re finding it hilarious to torture him (worrisome!), but I don’t have full use of that app as it is better suited for an iPhone.  Their favourite apps are  puzzle games, Shape Builder Lite and Tozzle Lite, and ones involving farm animals (Occupy Baby Lite has On the Farm, and they always like Peekaboo Barn Lite). (Gee, do you see how cheap I am?! Free apps all around!)

Thanks to Mom Central Canada, we were recently able to try out 3 new apps from My Living Stories.  I asked Oliver, and he decided he wanted to download The Tortoise and the Hare, King Midas, and Goldilocks.

Review:

As with Talking Carl, My Living Stories apps are better suited for an iPhone rather than an iPod touch as they give you the opportunity to record your own voice to tell the story. I suppose I could get a microphone for the touch.  I can see that a voice recording would be neat for a kid missing a parent, grandparent or other significant person.

I liked the graphics of the stories. They were clear.  The child-like voice reading the stories was also clear.  Sometimes, however, the background music seemed to drown out the voice of the reader.  We found it especially hard to hear the narrator of King Midas in parts.

The kids enjoyed the stories, which they were already familiar with except for King Midas.  Overall, I think it would have made more sense to have a collection of many stories as one app, rather than one story per app, but I’m not familiar with how technically difficult that would be.

Giveaway:

Hey Canadians, would you like to win a $25 iTunes card?

Here’s how:

1. Leave a comment on this post between now and August 10, 2010 at 7pm EST. Please indicate which My Living Stories app you think you’d be interested in (you can choose from the Princess & the Pea, King Midas, The Tortoise & the Hare, Little Red Riding Hood, and Goldilocks & the Three Bears). Do you have other favourite apps for your kids?
2. Please leave one comment per person only. There are no extra entries for any other activities (e.g. tweeting about it).
3. Please make sure your comment includes your email address.
4. Contest is open to Canadians only.
5. Readers may enter the contests on multiple blogs participating in this My Living Stories Mom Central blog tour, but are only eligible to win one iTunes gift card.
6. I will use random.org to select one winner on August 10th after 7pm EST.
7. I will contact you and ask you for a postal address if you have won. I will provide your name and postal address to Mom Central Canada for it to be used to send you your prize.
8. You do not need to be a parent to enter this contest. Maybe you’d like to record a story for your favourite niece/nephew/random kid you know.

Good luck!

I’m sure I’ll be getting out my iPod touch again when Callum has his first cast off next week…ugh…

Disclosure: I am participating in the My Living Stories program by Mom Central on behalf of Decode Entertainment. I received 3 free apps and a gift card as a thank you for my participation. The opinions on this blog are my own.

PS: also still a giveaway going on, on the other blog, for UnderWAY supplement drinks, which claim to curb hunger, until August 3rd.

Wednesday night is soccer night — which means dinner is prepared in a hurry, so anyone going can get out the door 20 minutes after we all get home.  I stuck a frozen thin crust pizza in the oven, ‘quattro formaggi’, cut up some strawberries, picked some grapes from the stem, and left out a box of field green & herb salad.

The boys sat down to eat, and I grabbed a slice of pizza. I suddenly had the idea to put some of the salad leaves on top of my pizza. I sat down, took a bite, and my time machine took me back to 2001.

July 18, 2001. My birthday. And I was crabby that it was my birthday and no one seemed to care (sometimes, I’m sulky and it’s stupid, I know). And it was really stinking hot. But? It was also Jean and Michelle’s wedding day. We were in Rome, Italy. We had come on this trip, the three of us, with the intention of getting these lovely people married in Rome. There had been problems getting the marriage license. There had been delays from their original planned wedding date as there was a minimum residency requirement. But today? They were getting married. For real.

Their Catholic priest back home in Northern Ontario had a connection to an American priest in Rome. I think I vaguely remember there had been a quick phone conversation to confirm that he would perform the ceremony.  We had ideas of a what a Catholic church wedding in Rome would be like – particularly after sight seeing on foot the previous few days, including a trip to St. Peter’s Basilica. I am not a Catholic. There is no god in my life. But visiting the Vatican just bowled me over.

Anyway; we found the church. And it was incredibly unlike St. Peter’s. It was kind of retro, maybe built in the 60′s. But here was the priest – a lovely, friendly man, whose American English was delicious after days of thick Italian blundering (by us).

I can’t remember everything about that day. I know I wore an unflattering long pale green dress I’d never wear today. I know that Jean and Michelle were so happy, and I had a tear in my eye. I know there was a funny old Italian man as a witness, besides me.

What I mostly remember is the priest taking us out for a meal afterwards. We went to a restaurant we never would have experienced: a small family-run place, nondescript. I was just guessing at what was on the menu, my Italian lacking. I ended up with a cheese pizza with rocket/arugula on top, and it felt like the best meal I had ever eaten. I can taste it now. I tasted it tonight, when I sort of recreated it. Almost. I was almost there.

We were invited back to the monastery to stay (I NEVER imagined I would end up sleeping at a monastery in my entire life) and it felt like the best sleep ever. After days of camping and hosteling on the cheap (the cheapest you could imagine), the newly married couple had their privacy, and so did I. A comfortable bed and a luxurious shower. And breakfast in the morning. It really was amazing.

The kids brought me back down to earth, with one squawking at the other, after I spent a few minutes back in Rome.  It was nice to go back, almost exactly 9 years later. I know I’ll go back again for real one day.  Maybe even with my good, still-married friends – if they’ll let me crash their second honeymoon like I did their first.

**

Speaking of food, there’s a review and giveaway on that other blog over there right now, for underWAY supplement drinks that claim to curb hunger. You can see what I think about them, and you can ask to try them, too, if you leave a comment, all you Canadians.