A Dose of Modern Motherhood

Pip shares my fashionista personality.

I've been a single parent most of this week. My husband travels a lot with his work. I used to like to accompany him to most conferences but now, I simply cannot. Life is too busy on the home front.

Yesterday evening, I decided to catch up on a few chores by driving my children around to pick up various supplies they need for their extra-curricular activities. We headed out at 4 pm and did not return until nearly 8 pm--four hours of driving from place to place--we managed to stop at nine different destination locations. I was spent. How does one parent in this age? Three children all needing Halloween costume supplies, piano lesson supplies, new running shoes for gym class, new skates for skating lessons, eye medicine for a sudden case of pink-eye.

I am not an errand loving kind of a girl. I like leisure time. I love having fun with life. So how did this happen to me? I work-out  and walk/run my dogs in the morning, work on my career all day and the evenings/weekends are house/children's errands, lessons.

There is no leisure time for me. Just before bed I meditate and read a little Dharma. I get up early,

before the sun and head out running with my dogs, and then it all starts all over again. However, running through the forest before the sun is up is truly one of the day's highlights. Forests smell so good in the damp, cool morning.

Me and my baby girl. 

I get why people are having smaller families in this century. If I had one kid, perhaps I'd have 3 stops, 2 kids--6 errand stops. I also understand why so many big families home school. If you have 5 kids, I dare say, it would be impossible to keep up with the errand demands if they attended public school. The wardrobe and supply shopping is endless. 

Yes, my daughters love fashion, just like their mom, but having the time to shop for fashionable clothing items is almost unheard of in our weekly errands. I consider that type of shopping, fun, almost like leisure time.

However, I am deeply grateful that I have been blessed with three babes to raise. And I intend to find some way to cut down on the endless errands, so that one day, perhaps, we might actually get to do nothing and go nowhere.

Pip and I on a recent fall day. I think age 6 is the perfect
fashionista age-absolutely anything goes. There are no
limits to the outfits one can create and wear.

The Professor and The School Girl

This is Peter and Pippi before school, Pippi in her angora leopard beret and Peter in his "professor" ensemble. The outfit conjures up images of a British Professor, perhaps hunched over leather bound volumes at Oxford. The look is a favorite with our daughters. They always ask him to, "wear your professor outfit!"

October is proving to be an even more busy month than September. Every weekend I am away. This weekend my family travels to The Kootney's for Thanksgiving, next weekend is a Buddhist retreat here in Kelowna but I attend Friday and Saturday. And the following weekend I am in Vancouver at The Surrey International Writers Conference. The last weekend of the month is the introduction of Dharma Kids to the Okanagan (I'm the teacher/founder).
Peter will be away several times this month also for conferences in Vancouver and Seattle. Ya. Like I said, the month is a little crazy. And sometime in there I must get Halloween costumes together. My girls still don't know what they're going to be.

My youngest daughter has been home ill with a cold, stomach flu and fever all at once. Here's hoping she's all better by the time we must leave for the Kootney's tomorrow. My eldest daughters are catching a ride there today with my sister. Peter is at a conference in Vancouver. I guess it's just me and the patient, alone again today. It was exhausting yesterday, as she only felt well if her head was resting on me the entire day.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving, my friends. I hope you enjoy the "Three Sisters" of the Iroquois Nation: Corn, beans and squash--true Canadian food.

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Confessions of a Blogging Addict

A recent article in the BBC news reporteded that Chinese scientists found significant brain changes in Internet addicts. They posed a series of questions to the subjects to determine if they were Internet addicts. And those who qualified as addicts, had their brains studied. The brain changes were similar to those found in other addicts (drug, alcohol, gambling etc.) The emotional side of the brain gets addicted to the (emotional) hits one gets on the net--brain stimulus.

I answered yes to many of the questions--Do I find myself online longer than I intended? Si senor. Have I tried unsuccessfully to limit my time online? Si, si senorita.

I confess that I feel the need to write online a lot. I love to express myself through other mediums and media. I think that is natural for me because I have the brain of artist--always have. So, is my strong desire to write online an addiction or the work of an artist needing to express herself?

I also confess to loving the Internet. It has opened up the word to me, a world I had no access to as a teenager. The ability to have all my questions answered instantly at my finger tips is wonderful. Oh, how I would have loved my digital encyclopedia as a teen. And the ability to express oneself instantly through multi hyper textual media is a dream for an artistic brain!

Some appreciate my art, of course others are critical--such is artistic expression. That's how it goes. I take hits in many ways. People tell me what they don't like about my blog all of the time. Also, my posts attract perverts on occasion and I have to reexamine my posts and delete stuff that I had no idea would attract perverts. People complain about my posts and ask Facebook to delete the odd one.

But what my blog does for me is give me a tablet to practice my writing daily. What could be better for an author? It also provides a chronicle of my family life. I am a recorder. Throughout history, written recordings of human society are what we study and learn from. Without a path of bread crumbs to follow back through history, how can one piece together the mysteries of human life on earth?

Now, having ranted a little about my blogging addiction, I will update my readers on some tidbits about my life:

Enjoyed a lunch downtown today with my friend Zoe :)

I am also enjoying a Latin dance class I am a student of on Tuesday evenings. My teacher is very thorough and a stickler on perfect form. I need this, as a Zumba instructor my technique is always exaggerated to emphasize the moves for my students. My teacher, Rob, brings me back to precise form--keeping my movements tighter and smaller.

My darling daughters keep me busy always. My little Pippi is keeping herself super busy with a new imaginary friend. Her last friend was another mom named Cindy. Her new friend is a little girl named Christie. Christie and Pip play the maze board game Labyrinth for hours together. If I hear her say something when I'm in the kitchen and I'll ask, "What was that Pip?"
      She'll say, "That was Christie Mom. Don't worry, if you hear a girl's voice that sounds like me, it's just Christie my best friend. She sounds a lot like me."
 I was resting in bed with a movie last night (more about this later) and I asked Peter to tuck Pippi into bed for the night. He returned to the bedroom after a few minutes. I asked, "Is Pippi all ready in bed?"
     "No," he said, "she's in the middle of a game of Labyrinth with Christie. I'm giving her ten minutes to finish the game."
Tonight at supper, we all accidentally sat on Christie as she seemed to move around the table unnoticed.
I adore my darling Pippi. She's a creative marvel! Mist and Tabs are both happy, busy gals too. Tabs busy planning her Birthday party with friends next weekend and Mist is going skiing again tomorrow night with a friend and getting ready for Ballet tonight.

I am loving my dog boys. Pablo and Fernando are the best friends a girl could ever ask for. Fernando has changed from a crazy beast, always getting into mischief, into a relaxed happy big bro. And Pablo is my cuddle boy still. Dogs are the best company. I'm super social by nature. So I cannot understand how anyone could live alone. If I were alone without other humans, I would always have my pets. Sitting beside them on the sofa, I always feel filled with love.

About my night off... January is a crazy month for me. The physical and mental demands on me as a Zumba teacher are high. I teach 5x a day sometimes, 4x other times and 3x on other days. Between that time I must try to do almost nothing to recoup for the next day of teaching and dancing. The physical demands show up by the fifth hour--my legs hurt a little and sometimes I have blisters. But it is hardest on my mind. I get exhausted being 'on' as a teacher. For five hours I am not only dancing and remembering 15 different songs and their steps, I am smiling and directing, and in the case of the children's classes, doing behavioural control. If the kids start to get aggressive with each other, I use a line inspired from lyrics by The Killers, "We've got soul but we're not soldiers. We are dancers. " I have to appear super pumped, happy and naturally lead the group in some hoots and hollers at opportune times.

So, hence, I have Spoil Queen MJ days. These are days when I try to do as little as possible exercise and work that would stress me. It is a day of nurturing all of me so I can cope with the crazy demands of my five class days. And in the evenings I treat myself to a foreign movie in bed with a Dairy Queen Blizzard in my hands. Last night the movie was Danish, Heaven. An unbelievably good movie which I highly recommend. The Blizzard was Peanut Butter Cup--also good :)

Blogging Addict signing off for now--until the next time my fingers are drawn to this keyboard.
I have to attend to a wee call out for "toilet paper" from down the hall :)

There are No Bridges Between Motherhood and Womanhood

Mistaya and Tabitha on Sunday at a piano recital.
I have been doing nothing but working out, and writing on my thesis--attempting to cook occasionally and do laundry when absolutely necessary.
My dear sweet Pip's birthday party will be postponed until April when I have the time to really focus on making it a fabulous party. A rushed party right now isn't going to work.

I am looking forward to going to Seattle at the end of the month. I am taking basic Zumba-I training. I will then be able to start teaching. I want to take 2 more workshops very soon after Seattle. Basic Zumba-II and Kids-Zumba. No one is offering II or kids around the globe right now. Zumba is so hot all they're doing all training in basic only. But, once Z-I is under my belt (April 2nd) I will take the other workshops. I am excited to teach the kids especially as Tabs so wants to be in my class.
I'll be able to teach while I look for the big job. The big job will be in teaching fine arts, English, communications or digital media or in corporate education or in digital communications or in online journalism/editing. These are my fields to start looking in.
I'm only going to do workshops that advance my career for a while (or make me money) thus Zumba and Renaissance painting techniques are the only ones I'm interested in at the moment.
My job will be my income, my passions will be painting and writing fiction. Zumba is simply for fun.

I have so very much to say about life...but I am still swimming like mad against fierce ocean currents so I am in no position to tread water and chat about it. My life is upside down and inside out still. Once I reach shore, I may share some of my scars and learned truths with you. But for now I am just simply swimming in the currents.

My life is in the biggest transition since parenthood. A big time of growth, however painful and confusing. I believe for a woman there are three major stages of growth: childhood, parenthood and womanhood. Womanhood does not come when a girl turns 21. It comes much later when she realizes the time has come to become autonomous and authentic. So I am morphing from being a mommy into a woman and it hurts. Of course I'll always be a mommy but it's the womanhood thing that rips one apart.

In our modern society there are no bridges, no footpaths to follow. Motherhood and womanhood are divided. Every woman has to find a way to build her own bridge and manage the rolls. No woman crosses her self-made bridge without some scars. I am not alone. Every mother has or will reach the point when someway, somehow she must become both or die trying. A few give up...finding the journey too painful. These women are not happy women.

Malaysian Jungle Plants

I thought the Elizabethan collar fungi was especially exquisite--Tamana Negara Jungle.

Suffering profoundly from jet-lag. How will I ever get up for the gym again? Not to mention I have my entire Master's degree hanging in the balance. I must get my act together and get back on the treadmill that is North American life.

I missed my daughters so much on my journey that all I wanted was to get back to my girls. And finally I am home with them again and I realize that I have many responsibilities to ensure our life together is good.

I need staff. I cannot possibly keep up the cleaning, renovating, cooking, wardrobes, lessons and leisure duties that keep a family home running. Peter is a man whose life is his work. Home is a place to crash. Thus I am responsible for all that is "home." It really is too much for one woman. Especially when the woman is also someone who is building a career. Mine is the generation without help. I need a housekeeper, handyman and gardener. I simply cannot do it all well. 

I am the mother who wants to be with her children--playing, exploring. I do not want to be chained to household chores and ignore my babes.

This is my constant struggle: to have a home that runs smoothly and have time to just be with my daughters and pursue a small place in the art world for me.