Wordless Wednesday

Road Trip! (or, Ten Days Without my Laptop)

Only fifteen years till he's doing this for real!!

Ten days days ago, I threw Captain Chaos in the carseat and took off  a road trip. ( I did not literally throw him. Put down the phone.)

After much deliberation, number crunching, nail biting, and forecast checking, I decided on a Wednesday night that, on Thursday afternoon, I would start out with my 11 month old son on a camping trip. It would span three provinces and nearly two weeks. The only destination I had was Starbelly Jam, a music festival in Crawford Bay, BC. There, I was to meet up with some old friends for a weekend of music, sun, swimming, and general hippie-ness.

Chaos at Starbelly

Starbelly Jam covered the first weekend. After that, I had no idea. I had vague notions of meeting up with other road-tripping members of my family somewhere in the mountains. Possibly we would make it all the way to the coast. Maybe I would visit far-flung friends in various places between here and there. Who knew? All I knew was that I really wanted to meet and reconnect with my friends in a place that was near and dear to all of our hearts, and I would figure the rest out from there.

Wednesday night and most of Thursday were spent in a flurry of packing food and baby items into the car. The camping equipment was no problem, as it lives in my trunk most of the summer anyway. I did, however, nearly forget to pack clothing for myself. Captain Chaos had a duffel bag full. For being such tiny human beings, babies sure travel heavy.

My family was supportive, and sweet. I think they realized that, with baby #2 due this winter, there was a good chance that I wouldn't be able to do this sort of thing again for quite a while. My father checked the fluid levels in my new-to-me car and taught me how to change the tire if the need arose. Grandma rushed off to CAA under the ruse of getting Alberta and BC maps for me. When she came back, she also had a CAA membership for me. An early birthday present, she told me. I am a lucky girl to have a family such as mine.

With the sun already creeping westward, we were finally packed and ready to hit the road.

West! (and a little bit south..)

As we headed west on the #1, a feeling of anticipation and elation gripped me. My first road trip in the driver's seat, and I was lucky enough to have my favorite person in the whole world riding along with me!

I won't go into a whole lot of detail about our trip, except to say it was by far the best thing I've done for myself in a long, long time. I got to hang out with old friends in old haunts and new situations. I got to ride around my old hood and reminisce, and I got to check out some cool new things in my hometown.  Baby and I got to bond in some really beautiful parts of the country, and Cap'n Chaos got to be nekkid on many different beaches. ( Trust me, it's important to him.)

A few of his favorite things

The Captain's first boat ride!

I got a chance to show my beautiful son off to many friends and family members who, until now, have had to be content with nothing more than pictures. And, needless to say, the little guy cleaned up on our trip. He got just about all the attention, love, and loot that he could handle. I'm pretty sure dragging all his cool new stuff back home across two provinces cost me an extra tank of gas!

Uncle's favorite nephew!

Most importantly, I got a chance to reconnect with myself. I found a little piece of me that's been missing for a while now; something that I didn't even realize was gone until I found it again. When I came here two years ago, it was to help another person. Then, before I knew it, I was in another highly unadvisable relationship with someone who did nothing but take from me.  So, without even realizing what had happened, I found myself giving everything I had to other people, and not leaving anything for myself. Again. It's not a good place to be.

I am lucky enough to have one beautiful child who takes everything I give, wraps it in love and affection and general amazingness, and gives it back to me one hundredfold. And OMG I have another one on the way! I need to be the absolute best I can be for these two little blessings, so that I can give that to them. And that means being the person I was meant to be, not changing who I am for some loser who doesn't appreciate it anyway.

I think that's a pretty rad thing to come away from a road trip with. When I was young, all I ended up with after road trips was a wrecked tent and a hangover!

What. Everrrrrr....

Firstly, I should clarify. Those are not boogs hanging out of my son's nose in the header pic, but grains of sand. We were at the beach. Maybe I should have thought of that before putting it up there, but I've become very enamoured of that pic and, well, it's summery. So there.

Now, to the post at hand. If I have any readers at all, they ( or she, as the case may well be ) will have noticed the posts are coming slow and low these days. It's not that I don't have anything to say. More like I have too much to say and not really that much time to edit what comes out.

Adjusting to single parenthood is demanding. On top of the daily struggle to figure out what goes where and what happens next (and where food and rent and gas are coming from), there's also all the ugly emotional shit one has to deal with when it comes to breaking up. It can be a little overwhelming at times, and it's tempting to do nothing but bemoan the shitty hand you've been dealt.  I've thought seriously about shutting this whole blog down. No one wants to hear a bunch of whining, and I sure as shit don't want to write it.

I've found a rather welcome surprise through this whole thing, though. There are a bunch of really positive feelings that come along with single parenthood.  I know, it may sound strange, but there are.  For me, the things that really stand out are the feelings of strength, of self reliance, of groundedness, and most importantly, a sense of freedom and possibilty that wasn't there before.

So, from here on in, this here blog is all about celebrating the awesome side of single parenthood.  I got no time for self pity, and neither do you.

Mmmm..Beer....

Tonight is my first night without Captain Chaos. If I went to sleep right now, I might actually get eight or more hours of sleep in a row. That hasn't happened since he was born. That's right, in the past ten months, I have not gotten more than five hours of sleep at any one given time. I can hear all you moms out there going "so?" but I'm pretty sure that the research I've read on sleep deprivation mentions going fucking crazy after a certain amount of time...

So, you ask, why the hell aren't you sleeping, princess?

I am not sleeping because I am blogging. I am blogging because I want a fucking beer. And a smoke. And a cigarette.

And none of those things are going to happen because A. I'm pregnant and B. I made a commitment to myself and to Captain Chaos that those things would not interfere with us. (At least, not till he's fifteen or so. I'm not a total idiot.) Anyway, under no circumstances will he be raised the way I was, and that's that.

Where I come from, there is a vein of addiction that runs deep and wide, and everyone I know has been affected by it in one way or another. I want to veer as far away from that vein as possible so that, hopefully, my kids have a fighting chance at a somewhat normal life.

The thing that I wasn't prepared for is how hard it is to do that. I mean, I'm no saint. I haven't got a lot of practice at this whole abstinence thing yet. Captain Chaos himself was concieved in a haze of beery, shot laden, cigarette smokin party-ness. It was only after I found out that he was coming into the picture that I toned it down. He's not showing any signs of FAS yet...(fingers crossed..)

 Since then, it's been a pretty easy ride. I mean, I was pregnant for the first time and obessessed with doing it right ( and by right I mean perfectly, because that's who I am). Then bam! I was a mom and god knows I haven't had much of a chance to think about tying one on, what with most of my time being taken with trying to keep Cap'n Chaos alive and the house from burning to the ground....

But tonight was different. As soon as I dropped him off with Baby Daddy, I could tell I was going to have trouble. I was already talking myself out of a beer two blocks from BD's house.

It didn't help that I dropped a couple of friends off at an outdoor concert after that. Man it took me back. Dressed up on a Friday night, a case of beer and a pack of smokes in the purse, going to see some live music. That's pretty much how I grew up. Shit, when I heard those bottles clink together, I thought I was going to die of thirst.

Someday I will be able to drop my kid off for the night without obessing over this shit.

Someday I will be able to go see a band again without wanting a beer and a smoke, but until then, I guess I'll just sit right here, writing it all down until I'm tired enough to just sleep.

Which is what I am now.

Which makes this a very

Good night. :)

Well, at Least it's Not Boring

Well helloooo there. My, what a few weeks it's been. That may sound like an excuse to you, but check this shit out.

Baby Daddy and I are now living in separate abodes. That's right, it's ovah. It's okay, it was inevitable, for the best for everyone involved, and Captain Chaos still gets to spend lots of time with the old man.

I'm not done yet.

Also, it turns out that Captain Chaos will be welcoming a little brother or sister in a few short months. (Or, if I'm to believe my friend, brothers or sisters. She seems to believe that I am going to be blessed with twins. I keep telling her to shut the hell up.)

so...

Because I'm just finishing up my first mat. leave, I also need to try and squeeze in 23 weeks of work before I squeeze the next kitten out or else no benefits for mommy. Yay!

Anybody got any hot ideas for working from home?

Open Letter To My Son, on The Eve of Our First Mother`s Day

Psst...hey. Captain Chaos. You`re tired. I can see it in your eyes, in your flushed cheeks, in your frustration at the little things.   I know you don`t realize it, but at some point you have to give it up. And that point is now. So let`s put away the toys and the blanket, let`s stop crawling and pulling up, standing and falling. Let`s stop terrorizing the dogs and eating stuff off the carpet when mommy`s not looking. Let`s stop exploring, rolling, squealing, wheeling, ranting, charming, messing, hiding, finding, toppling, breaking, laughing, crying, snacking, napping and waking to do it all over again. Let`s pack in the car rides and the shoulder rides and the stroller rides and the walker rides. We can do all those things plus more tomorrow.

We`ll have a nice warm bath, and you can play with your toys while you cover mommy in bathwater. You can howl in protest when I take you out of the tub. Then we`ll wrestle you into a clean, dry diaper and a clean, dry sleeper. Have a nice nip off the bottle in a dark, quiet room. Then I`ll rock you to sleep and whisper to you. Tell you how great you`re doing. How much I love you. Tell you that you don`t have to grow up too fast - even though I can already see that you are...

When you are asleep, I`ll put you down in your crib and rush back upstairs to finish clearing the wake of destruction you`ve left in your path. Then, a snack, and I`m right behind you on our way to dreamland, and in the morning, we`ll wake up and do it all over again. Tomorrow, though, will be a little special for me. It`s Mother`s Day - the day that I get to celebrate being YOUR mother.

Fear, Trust, and some dude named Bob

Fear is an ugly, ugly thing.

I suppose, in the right context, fear is a good thing. It's healthy to have a little fear. It's what kept our ancestors from trying to shake a paw with saber toothed tigers. It's what keeps us away from that guy in the alley with a knife. Thus we live to propagate the species with that fear reaction intact.

Too much fear is what I'm talking about. Fear that gets in the way of living life, that damages relationships, that causes meltdowns. Monsters in the closet, grownup style. Where does that fear come from, and why is it so hard to get rid of?

In my life, I've had a lot of people tell me that I wasn't good enough for their love, sometimes through their words, most of the time through their actions. I've gotten to a place where I actually fear love - or more specifically, where I fear losing the people I love. It's irrational and it leads me to do ridiculous things. I spent many years in a loveless relationship because it felt safe to me. It was an incredibly stupid, cowardly thing to do and it taught me that a person I'm not in love with can hurt me too. Just in different ways. But it wasn't scary, and that was what made me stay.

Over the past couple of years, I've shed my cocoon of dead end relationships and substance abuse and found this big beautiful life in this big beautiful world, and it's beyond amazing to me. I never even thought it could be like this. It's full of love and hard work and happiness and sadness and all kinds of fantastic things - in short, it's a real life. And it scares the shit out of me. I hoard all the precious moments I can from it, ever fearful that someday all my happiness will be snatched away from me. My fear overshadows those moments, darkens the brightest days. It sits in the corner and whispers terrible things to me - that the trust I've worked so hard to have in those I love most will be shattered. That these people who mean so much to me will leave in time. That I will be hurt terribly again.

I'm sick of my fear. I call it "mine", like it's something I own. That's how long I've had it. Jeebus Christ - I may as well give it a name. "Hello, I'm Toquegirl, and this is my fear, Bob." It's fucking ridiculous.

I know that this fear, this lack of trust, is not protecting me from anything. In the end, it is more damaging than anything anyone else can do to me. So it's time to move on. Give Bob the boot, give the haters the finger, and get the fuck on with living, finally.

Wish me luck.