Is it Worth it?

Almost exactly one year ago I started my maternity leave. My baby was due in two weeks, and working full time was exhausting. I needed the time to rest, to prepare. And, I thought, was was two weeks? I wouldn't even feel the difference at the end of my mat leave year. However, Isabella did not cooperate. She didn't want to come out into the world. My due date neared, came, passed. Day after day I waited, spending an hour of each at the hospital being tested to ensure my placenta wasn't degrading and the baby was still healthy. Finally, thirteen days late, Isabella was born. What can compare to becoming a mother? I've spent nearly every moment of the eleven months since then with her. Playing, teaching, laughing, adoring. The longest I've been away from her was for an hour, when I had a dentist appointment.

It has been the best time of my life, and now it's over. In two days I go back to work. I love my job, but it's nothing compared to how I feel about my daughter. The last few weeks have been very stressful for me. I lie awake at night, worrying about how Isabella will handle being with a stranger all day (her stranger anxiety has not lessened at all), worrying about how I will handle being away from her all day. Worrying about mundane details like how she'll get to her dayhome when I start work before it opens and we only have one car - will Rob take her by bus? What about naps? One dayhome lady said, very firmly, that naps are from 1-3. But Isabella doesn't sleep then. She takes her nap in the morning. Will she be able to sleep the ruckus of other children playing? And most heart-wrenchingly: will she like the dayhome lady better than me after a while? Will she think they dayhome is her realy family? That I am merely the woman who puts her to bed at night?

I don't know if I can do this.

I wish that money weren't an issue, that Rob was done school and had a great job so I could stay home and do what I really love. Knowing how I feel, Rob says I should only work part time, but if I did that we wouldn't be able to make ends meet. And when I go on mat leave next time I'll be bringing in even less. At that rate, by the time Rob is done school we'll we swallowed up in an impossibly large amount of debt.

What is more important? Being with my daughter now, but struggling financially for years and years to come? Or going back to work, letting her be raised by a stranger, breaking my heart, but probably no other ill side effects.

Help, please!

Me and my darling Isabella July 2009

Rage against the Machine

Warning: this post may contain an impolite amount of caps. Not at you, but at the EVIL DIRECT ENERGY!


My Rant


We've all heard of hidden fees. I saw a commercial the other day about them. A hotdog stand is advertising $1 hotdogs, so a man gets one. His total is something like $5. It turns out all the toppings are extra, and there might even be some admisistration fee or something (I didn't make it the whole way through the commercial). For some reason, I have always thought that hidden fees only applied to cell phones. I WAS WRONG. Even electricity and natural gas suppliers have hidden fees. So hidden, in fact, that they don't show up on the bill.


Last summer, a nice man from Direct Energy showed up at our door. He knew a way for us to save money. If we switched to a non-regulated plan, we would save $6.50 a month in admin fees, and possibly more from the cost of electricity and natural gas. While $6.50 doesn't sound like a lot, Rob and I are trying to save money wherever we can. Every little bit we save on utilities and such can go toward things useful and necessary like, oh, FOOD. So, we switched.


From then on, our Direct Energy bills have gone up. A lot. 40% up. At first we thought maybe the price of natural gas had just gone up, or maybe the government had set its regulated cap higher this year. So we payed outrageous bills ALL. WINTER. LONG. I put thick plastic up over the windows and we keep the temperature in our house pretty low, all to save us money. $5 here, $10 there. Oh I just want to scream!


Tired of paying so much to heat our little house, Rob finally did some research online. Yes, the plan we are on does save us the $6.50 admin charge, but then THEY charge us an admin fee PER GJ USED, just for the privilege of having the first fee waived. They don't put that on the bill, just the higher rate, the final amount we have to pay. We were paying an EXTRA $110 a month! I lay awake for hours last night, just fuming.


The nice salesman had never said a word about the fee per GJ, our bills likewise never explained why the rate was so high. Were we supposed to just know? Did they assume we had ESP? A chatty help icon that would tell us the answer to a question we didn't even know we had to ask?


Needless to say, we're switching back to the old plan.

Lab Rat

Today feels almost like spring. The sky is cloudless, the sun bright and warm. I just can't look down; the piles of snow destroy the illusion. Isabella is going through what I believe is called "stranger anxiety." If anyone other than myself of Rob looks at her, especially if that someone is a man, she freaks out. Sometimes this is cute, and I do like the way the clings tightly to me, but I feel bad when we spend time with our respective families and Isabella refuses to go anywhere near them. Anyway, today, because of nice day, Rob put on his dark sunglasses before heading outside. He came over to give us a kiss goodbye. As he got closer, Isabella's lower lip stuck out, her face crumpled, her hold on me tightened. He reached for her. She let out a wail, her face contorted with fright. Rob thought it was hilarious and insisted on torturing her in this manner several times throughout the day.

I wonder, does this mean that Isabella doesn't recognise Rob with his shades on? Or does she know it's him but the sunglasses are too scary? I don't think it's the glasses, since she's okay with holding them, or wearing them. I've read that babies can smell their mothers, but I guess not their fathers. It must not be the rest of his body that she knows, but his eyes. Hmmm, what if I put on the sunglasses? Will Isabella be scared of me with them on? She's asleep right now (the only time I can write- that girl loves keyboards) but perhaps tomorrow I'll try it.

Any bets on how she'll react?

Back to the Future

For the last week I've been reading a series of books written about an ancestor of mine that lived in mid 1800's. I've always enjoyed a well-written historical fiction, and these books are doubly interesting because 1. the events aren't just plausible, they're actual; and 2. I'm related. For every chapter the authors have written a little blurb about where they got their information and what parts they had to improvise.

While the historical setting and larger events come from sources like newspapers and state databases, the most part of the story is taken from journals and letters. It's fantastic that this family (all of them, it seems) kept meticulous journals, and even wrote poetry about their lives.

My journal writing has always been somewhat spotty. Sure, there was that year when I wrote every single day, but usually it's more along the lines of every month. So if, a couple hundred years from now, someone actually reads my journal and somehow decides my life is interesting enough to write about, how close would that story be to my actual life? The larger picture would be accurate: getting married, having a baby, etc. But would the readers know who I am? Would they see who I love, what I'm passionate about, what I believe?

Judging by entry frequency, I would come across first as the teenager who was infatuated with a certain boy, Ben* (I may have written about him once or twice, and even printed out and glued in a few of our IM conversations); and then suddenly the mother who can't get enough of her baby.

I wonder how much one can tell about a person just from the way one writes. Can you tell that I'm a sucker for classic novels like Pride & Prejudice, The Lord of the Rings, The Chronicles of Narnia? Can you feel the deep love I have for my family? Sense the commitment I have to my religion and to my God?

I wonder...

*Name may have been changed to preserve a certain amount of dignity

The Goal that Wasn't

New Years. I remember as a kid, each year in January my dad would have us all pull out our journals and write down goals for the year. "A goal not written is only a wish." I'm pretty sure my goals were all well-intentioned, but after that day, I don't think I ever thought of them again. It was tradition. As an adult I'm a lot more careful about making goals. I don't just casually think something up, put it in my journal, and promptly forget about it. No, my goals are carefully thought out. They are worthwhile and achievable. Last year I picked three things that I thought were both these things, wrote them down, and left the paper out so I could see it all the time and be reminded. I found that paper a few months ago when I was organising; I think it had gotten swept into a stack of other papers within a couple weeks. Oops.

So my goal setting process is still a work in progress. Maybe next year.

Just kidding. I did actually set a goal for 2010. Just one. (Of course I have myriads of other things I'm working on, but I'm already working on them- this goal is something new.) I'm not going to write it down - but that doesn't make it a wish. This is something I am going to accomplish.

Just watch me.

What Christmas is All About

Family.

I could just leave it at that, but the blogger in me wants to elaborate. Of course, Christmas is actually a celebration of the birth of Jesus, but how bad is it that that's not what I get most excited about? It's an essential part, yes. A good opportunity to reflect on what His birth means to me. One of my favourite traditions is the Bethlehem dinner, where we spread a blanket on the floor and eat what Mary and Joseph may have eaten that night.

It's not about presents, either. Christmas shopping (the actual shopping part, not deciding what the people I love will exclaim over) is probably my least favourite part of Christmas. I have war wounds from that.

Rob and I were at Toys 'R Us in Kelowna, hoping to find a particular game. The parking lot was full, but we finally found a spot. A narrow one; the cars on either side had both parked right on the line, and we were in a minivan. Rob squeezed us in, though, thanks to his mad parking skills. We were close enough to the car on the passenger side that not only was my door unable to open, but even the sliding door on that side was a no-go. So I climbed over the car seat on the driver side to get out. It was the getting back in the same way that was my undoing. I'm not exactly sure how, but I landed on the car seat in an awkward way, and now I have some sweet bruises (see below).

But I was talking about my favourite part of Christmas: family. My definition of family includes blood-relatives, in-laws, and close friends. I love to get together with them. Laugh, tell stories, eat good food, and sit quietly and enjoy each others' company. I like to sing with them, watch old family videos, play with the kids, bask in the Christmas spirit and excitement.

For me, Christmas is not about what I get (although I am selfish enough to like that part, too) but the good excuse it provides to get on a plane and be with my family.