Some good news…

Good news – I finally booked a gig!  No, not the lead I really, really wanted, but the tiny role. The kind designed to keep my big ego in check.  Haha.   Well, I’m back on set – that’s all that counts.  There are no small roles, only small actors, right?  Bad news – my back is killing me.    So I feel miserable, but going to the chiro tomorrow.

Our annual general women’s meeting went wonderfully on Sunday.  I had two guests.  I shared my experience of surviving infertility and my journey through adoption.  Funny, just how talking bout the past can bring the emotions back again.  I spoke only from my perspective being careful not to dwell too much on my thoughts about the Precious’ birthmother or adoption in general.  It was from the Buddhist perspective, finding my way through compassion and connection and faith.  The Lotus Sutra promises its practitioners that all prayers will be answered and I remember a time when it certainly seemed my prayers were not being answered and it certainly seemed personal. ( Of course, I think everything is about me anyway.)  I certainly don’t think I was a shining example of Buddhahood during that time, but I had a lot of daimoku and irl friends keeping me afloat.  For this, I am eternally grateful to you all.  For being lights in the darkness.

I was kind of hoping that some woman would tell me that they had gone through the same thing, but that didn’t happen.  I do know of one woman in particular who certainly did understand what I had been through because she had gone through it as well.  Of course, that’s her story to tell (or not), not mine.  But sharing your experience can certainly help someone else and it can serve as a reminder to yourself of how far you’ve come.

Moving again?

I’m seriously obsessed by Vancouver real estate.  I’m fascinated by the fact that a crappy little house costs over a million dollars.    I live in a really nice neighbourhood – tree lined streets, safe, lots of dogs, people who say good morning and all that.  It’s a little like a suburb within city limits.  It’s also seriously overpriced and has been for years from what I hear.  If you rent, chances are the house is outdated, cramped and worn and doesn’t come with lawn service.  So not only do you pay rent,  utilities and hydro, you’re also expected to keep up the grounds at your own expense (unless of course, you don’t care to sit in your yard).

Right now there are a lot of properties available for sale  in this neighbourhood.   So if you are in the market for a $1.5 MIL + home, you’re good to go.  Sadly, we cannot afford them.  Not yet anyways.  We can’t afford to rent here any longer either (not if we’re serious about saving enough to buy), so we’re talking about moving again. And we’ll have to downgrade, because there is no way on earth we can rent an entire house with a yard for less than what we’re already paying.  Well, at least in town.  So that leaves a 2 bedroom condo (not a lot allow big dogs), leaving the city proper, or sharing sharing a house.  Both DH and I are bummed about it which may explain the increase of chocolate eating we’ve been doing.  We’ve been looking and not finding much, hence the stress.  Having a large dog doesn’t help if we look at condos either.  I have a feeling we’re going to be moving further away than we’d like, which of course, but hubby needs to be at work really early, so nearby transit has to be considered or another vehicle.

Good god, I need a drink.

Busting out

Gack!  I’ve fallen off the Weight Watchers plan big time.  Burned out.  Pretty darn sure all the inches I lost have come back.  Sigh.  I’ve been thinking of quitting WW, I’m just tired of getting on the damn scale.  I’ve lost my motivation. I know I have at least 20 more lbs to go, but my emotional eating is in the way.  What emotions am I eating away now?   Seriously, just throw a dart.  And the thought of putting in 6 hrs a week in the gym – oh, man.  Yes, that’s what it takes for me, I know, cause I’ve done it before.  Except now I have a busy 2 yr old and have to wait til hubby gets home and dammit if I’m not tired by 6pm.   Honestly, the point system does work, but like most programs, you gotta actually DO it and I’m not really doing it anymore.  I’ve skipped a few weigh ins due to work or holiday plans and now I don’t want to face the scale that is just going to confirm that I’ve been cheating left, right and centre.    Oh, I earned my 10% keychain, but I had to leave right away that day so I didn’t even get a cheer.   Honestly, if I have to hear another story about how many almonds you can eat for a snack or weighing food or whatever, I’m going to kill myself.  I love working out and I’d rather be working out than going to  a weigh in and a meeting that fills me with dread. Also, where else can I go for months once a week and NOT have any friends or at least greet someone by their first name?  Really.  Yawn.

We were supposed to go visit the in-laws but it was cancelled last minute because my MIL had a bad cold and cough.  I  wasn’t too bummed about it because even if we had gone just for one day DH would not have left the kid so we could get out to a movie, and of course, there was the matter of sleeping on a thin piece of foam on the living room floor.  Ugh.  My back!   My sweet mother in law was sad to not see her adored grandson, but really, they had just returned from a cruise and she needed her rest, so I told her we’d see her soon enough.  Turns out it was a good decision because later I find out that MIL didn’t sleep well due to her cough and then a ferry was out of commission so it would have been a nightmare on the Victoria Day weekend.  Not to mention, REALLY expensive to just go sit in their living room.  Why not just stay  home and eat Pringles and drink pinot grigio?   Yep, I did. Don’t judge me.  It rained all weekend anyway.  Bah!

No news on the big audition, but I had another one yesterday for two small roles.  I went to a friend and did some work on them after the kid went to bed.  It was a producer/director session, a rarity these days for me, I went in uniform and thought I was pretty darn good.  We’ll see.  I had to drop of the Precious with hubby at his office and of course, he then tells me he has a meeting.  That’s the problem when you take babysitting out of the budget, but he was a trooper (both of them) and all went well.

Did I tell you I’m doing a staged play reading on June 2nd?  I am so psyched about it.  The play is “Proof”  by David Auburn and what’s different is that the family is black and I’m playing the older sister, Claire.  It’s a really good part and I look forward to rehearsals which start this weekend.  I even got my hair done.  And get this – I now have bangs.  Ghetto bangs.  I haven’t had bangs since 1983.  It’s a little weird, I have to tell you, I keep moving them out of the way.

Also coming up this Sunday afternoon is our annual women’s general meeting for my Buddhist group.  I’m sharing my experience regarding infertility and adoption from a Buddhist perspective.  Yikes!   If anyone is in the area and would like an invite, let me know, we’d love to have you.

Back in action

Good news – I have another phone – same model, Galaxy Nexus – hubby got on the phone (for the 3rd time) to talk to the customer loyalty department and got them to agree to replace my phone for $90.  He has spent literally thousands of dollars with them over the years.  He just had to sign with them again for another 3 year contract.  Gak!  These cell phone companies are like jailers.  Oh, you want an extra blanket.  Oh, you’ll have to stay in jail for another 3 years for that perk!  Which is a lot better than the $295 we were quoted to repair my phone and the $500 fee the dealer wanted to replace it.  And even better news – when I activated the new phone, thanks to Google, it still had all my contacts and 95% of my pictures (just don’t have the ones from Mother’s Day but that’s no big deal since friends took the same pictures). The videos of my mum and Kai were already on Google + so now all I have to do is to put back all my old apps. Ta da!

Then I got an audition for a lead in a movie – don’t get excited, it’s a bit of along shot – but I went for coaching the night before.  That really helped my negative state of mind. I just needed to talk stuff out with someone who understood some of my frustrations.   So if I go to coaching the night before, that will be my time to do my work.  That way, the morning of an audition I won’t be a rushed, unprepared, scattered, exhausted mummy who just wants a cup of coffee and a nanny.  Well, I won’t be unprepared anyway.

Motherhood and guilt

I had a perfectly lovely Mother’s Day weekend! No cooking required!  Saturday morning we got breakfast sandwiches from Tim Horton’s, and then dinner was takeout from one of my favourite Caribbean restaurants followed by a mini Blizzard!  I actually jumped for joy!  Then Sunday was a spectacular brunch on Granville Island with friends.  We had an outside table overlooking the harbour – it couldn’t have been a more beautiful day weather wise.  Warm – ah! – the lovely sunshine, mimosas and a nearby grassy knoll for the kids to run off their steam.   And finally sushi for dinner and wow – Dairy Queen ice cream cake!  Whee! So much for the budget this weekend. Hubby warned me about the cost of the brunch (my friend’s hubby made the reservations so of course, it was a matter of saving face) and I did have a mini-rant.  But I suppose I’m worth it.

Then I woke up Monday in a snit cause it was back to my “work week”, guilt took over after pigging out all weekend and the kid was in full whine mode.  He seems to have problems transitioning between fun weekends with Daddy and then the horrible woman who wants to change his diaper, make him eat, and go to activities all on her timetable.

Good news is that I actually dropped him off at his All On My Own Class! It’s a class for 2 year olds to learn to play with their peers independent of their parents.   Victory!  This after two weeks of sitting in the mummy chair in the corner because he would have meltdowns if I tried to leave.  90 minutes of sheer giddy freedom!  Except this time, I realized I had misplaced my phone and I ran back to the car hoping to find it inside on the seat only to see it on the ROAD!  And of course, they were paving the main road in the middle of the freaking day and there were no right turns except where the community centre was so of course, 50 cars had probably DRIVEN OVER IT!!!!  I picked up it, the protective hard case still intact but the screen smashed.  REALLY smashed.  I drove to the Telus dealer who tried to download the data unsuccessfully and handed me a card to a repair store.  That was it.  Thanks for nothing.  My beloved Galaxy Nexus.  They wanted $500 if I wanted a new phone.  Yeah, I was fucked.  Of course, it was then that I noticed the sign for the extra protection plan they had. Insurance for your phone that I’m damn sure DH would not have taken.

Well, I had time to pick up a coffee and head back to pick up the kid.  I had had glorious plans to walk to the nearest Starbucks to work on my study material for a Buddhist meeting.  At least my laptop is still working.  My other lifeline.  For a while there, I thought it was toast – the fan was making aircraft noises and I feared the worst.  Seems like something was rolling around in there, hubby fiddled with it, blow compressed air into the ventilation holes,  even tried to take the cover off and get to the fan, but that didn’t work out very well. I switched it to eco utility – to save power – and somehow the noise went away.  Oh, my laptop is my work and also my companion.  Of course, hubby said we’d get a new one cause I needed it for work.  Frankly, it would have been cheaper than a new smartphone. Sigh, you know, I never NEEDED a smartphone until I got one.

Needless to say I chanted for my phone.  Hubby is going to take it to see if it can be saved.

Anyway…. at the brunch, one of the women in attendance  is 5 months pregnant.  So I chatted with her and asked how her pregnancy was going, and how complete strangers will now invade her life to talk about her child.    I nodded my head and smiled, not knowing a bloody thing of course about being pregnant, other than hearsay.  No, I did not touch her belly, I’m not really into that.  I have only touched one pregnant belly in my whole life and that was a close friend and only for a brief moment.  Then when the other women chimed in about pregnancy, I withdrew from the conversation.  It was a little like the old days, that awkward moment that even as a mother now, I can’t relate to.  But it’s only that, awkward, and everyone knows my story so they didn’t go on and on.  Not a big deal.  Not anymore.

I was more verklempt because my own mum was not there. I was going to go see her later, but it never happened. I just sat in the backyard with my kid and a glass of wine and watched him play.  I could have left and driven downtown to see her briefly before dinner but I didn’t.  I could have gone after the kid went to sleep.  But I didn’t.   I had seen her on Friday and Saturday and brought her a musical card and sang to her while I greased her hair and cut it.  She was so agitated (ie. loud keening noises and a bad mood) that the nurse couldn’t even give her the medication to calm her.  I managed to do it a few minutes later after she finally begrudgingly relented.   I sang Bridge Over Troubled Water to her.  She used to sing that to me when I was a child.  It soothed her.  She chimed in, and for a brief moment, her strong voice came back.  That was our time, just me and her.  The days of fancy lunches and drinks and presents are done.  It’s tough.  This dementia thing, it’s a bitch.  I’m not sure about what kind of life a person has living like that.  Yes, it’s life and it’s sacred, but really, to see her like that…..   It’s been 8 years, I’ve never not been with her on Mother’s Day until this year.  I felt guilty but I am trying to let it go. She’d want me to be with my family, but she’s my family too.  And that’s precisely why I didn’t make it to see her on the actual day.  I KNEW it would just gut me.  I just wanted a pleasant day with just twinges of guilt rather than a depressing and sad end to my nice day.

Oh, man, what is it about motherhood that makes guilt such a regular occurrence in life.  The why can’t I just be the perfect mother and daughter and wife and wage earner thing.  Bah, there is no such creature, but we keep trying to be somehow.  Or is it just me?

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Kudos

Kudos to the Pacific Post Partum Support Society who included adoptive mums when raising awareness for post partum depression.  I went to a fundraiser a couple years ago and I found it very interesting. I originally went to support a friend of mine who had experienced post partum depression after the birth of her twins.  Now of course, since I have never given birth, I thought out of whack hormones were largely to blame for post partum.  I was surprised to hear a brief mention about adoptive mums.  I remember when Lavender Luz talked about it on her blog as post adoption depression.  I don’t think I ever had that.  Any blues I’ve ever had are more about the stuff I’ve always struggled with before adoption but were now of course compounded with the demands of motherhood and my apparent inability to be a super happy super achieving super skinny woman.   Um, err, maybe I did.  But those feelings were not associated with how well I bonded with the Precious.  Let’s face it, he was pretty darn easy as an infant.  He slept well, he ate well,he wasn’t sick, and he only cried when he had a obvious reason to do so.  What I was depressed about was how people (you know who you are) still thought I could keep a 1500 sq. ft apartment orderly, walk the dog, cook, AND take care of the Precious. That’s just crazy talk.