My Mama Year

As far as I can recall (this may be one instance where my failing memory comes in handy) I rocked the Mama Pants this year. Exhibit one: every time my husband says he's going away on another trip the kids yell "yay!" (this is because they treasure the quality time we spend together, NOT because I relax the TV and junk food restrictions while I'm single parenting). Exhibit two: I don't feel like doing exhibits any more. Oh yeah, I've also been great on consistency and follow-through as a parent. 

 Angus and I are a mere few pages away from finishing the first book I've ever managed to read aloud to him all the way through. We read a few pages snuggled in his bed before he goes to sleep most nights -- if there's no hockey game, if I'm not out dancing, if he doesn't fall asleep first, if I'm not coughing up a lung. It takes a LONG time to read a book out loud. We tried with a couple of the Harry Potter books, The Golden Compass, The House at Pooh Corner and a few others, but this one will be our first completion, which makes me happy. 

 With Eve's bullying incident (in which she was the victim) in grade one and this term when she was in a class I loved but there were whispers of her being moved to a class where I thought the teacher would be a much worse fit, I discovered that I was able and effective at standing up for my kid -- and I'm generally a cringing wimp, so this was a nice thing to find out. 

 I had my first experience of having a kid on a high-performance competitive team with Angus's (goddamned) A-team baseball experience this summer. Granted, I didn't have to do a whole lot other than be the sole person responsible for Eve (and not letting the house fall to ruin while the men in my family ate slept breathed and farted baseball for four solid months), but I handled the whole thing with -- well -- a higher degree of graciousness than might be expected from anyone who knows me well, let's leave it at that. 

 This fall was great for a slightly self-indulgent level of me-time, with World Trivia Night, Chris's wedding, Priscilla Queen of the Desert in Toronto and my 40th birthday high school girls' weekend. I've finished three courses in my library tech diploma (how many left? Don't ask. Please). The house is less cluttered than it was last year, which is to say still unbelievably lamentably appallingly hoarder-level cluttered compared to the rest of the world, but better for us -- anybody need a few reams of lined paper, three boxes of play-doh accessories, some Blues Clues VHS tapes, a breadmaker/juicer/deep fryer/wok, some canned goods of dubious provenance, a thousand books, or this blue plastic thing that might be needed to make something else function?

 I still have sleep issues, need to exercise more (although until November Pam and I were on fire with the Wednesday Work-out) and organize my time more effectively, as well as not sending my kids to their friends' houses for the week-end with pneumonia. But my kids are happy and confident and clever and entertaining, with a healthy sense of irony, and overall I'd say that last year goes in the win column.