I don’t remember when my last blog post was but I am reasonably certain it was a while ago. I think about blogging all the time but the opportunity to sit down for, say, 15 uninterrupted minutes seldom comes around. Or it comes around at 11 pm, squarely 18 hours after I’ve hit the ground running for another jammed packed day. I have a file folder full of half-started blog posts and a head full of half-baked comments. But the headlines come and go and the new Word documents remain untouched. I have developed an addiction to Facebook and Twitter or “how to have a social life in 15 seconds or less.” Life with six children is a constant source of wonder — mixed with exasperation, beaming pride and frustration — but it is a busy life.
As I write these lines, it’s 10:30 am and there are floors to be vacuumed, three bathrooms to be sanitized, a supper to get on the way, a few plants to be re-potted, a baby to be consoled, a puppy play-area to be set-up, winter coats and boots to be unearthed and two kitty litters to be changed. The greatest thing about finding happiness in small things — like writing instead of doing housework — is that you find more happiness. We are just wrapping up 10 weeks of kitchen reno during which I was making all the food and doing all the dishes on the deck in increasingly cold weather. When the tradesmen — no tradespeople around here: they’re all guys — come in and say “Wow! it must be nice to have such a great kitchen!” I say “I’m just glad to have an indoor kitchen!!” Small mercies I’m telling you, like indoor plumbing, are the spice of life.
In the last 6 months, I have meant to blog on life with teenagers, the HPV vaccine (did we agree to it or not and why), guidelines for neonatal resuscitation, euthanasia, raising children to be obedient and come out of attics when called (until it came out that the child was in fact being obedient by staying in said attic and my point was moot), avoiding DIY medical procedures like circumcision, all the things I’ve learned about raising children by reading dog training books, H1N1 mass vaccination in Ottawa (I’m still waiting) and my latest “Parent of the Year award goes to…” Instead, we sold our house and moved into a new one, tore down some serious walls and rebuilt new ones, thought of writing a backyard cooking book, got two cats, mourned the death of one to coyotes, got another one, and a puppy, slept very little, remembered with shame all the friends who have yet to receive thank you notes following the birth of my soon-to-be toddler, and put more mileage on the truck from driving kids to athletic activities than we would have driving to Jamaica and back.
Someday I’m sure, I will have all the time in the world to write. But I’m also sure that I will miss the insanity of my children’s younger years. Meanwhile in the trenches, if you will excuse me, the baby is chewing on a USB stick and the kitten just wrapped himself in a roll of boxing tape…
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Andrea adds: Véronique, I miss you when you can’t post, but when you are back, it is worth the wait. I laughed out loud three times reading this, and I’m not talking discrete chuckles. (“All the things I’ve learned about raising children by reading dog training books”??) We’re talking the kind of laughter that has people turning their heads in restaurants…now this happens to me quite frequently, I might add, but that doesn’t make this post any less funny.
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