It is fitting that the last day of 2010 started out with me cleaning vomit out of one child’s bed, and pee out of the other’s. It’s like they were puking and pissing all over the last day of the year, something that I wish I could have done too. As far as years go, last year was especially crappy. Crappy for me, for Willy, for his family, my family, our friends. I hate that I cried almost every day last year, and that I can barely remember any good memories, they are so clouded by the bad.

Willy and I were talking to friends last night, and were pressed to come up with the best thing about the year. We were able to pin that down fairly quickly, with both of us agreeing that my brother and sister-in-law’s wedding in Jamaica was wonderful. I am so glad that they got married (after twenty-two years!!!), that it was in Jamaica, and that they wanted us all to be there. It was a great trip for us all, one that we often talk about as a family. The trip brought my extended family together, something that has rarely happened since. The relationships that my mother has with all three of her children are disjointed and dysfunctional at best. It hurts me to see that she is hurting all of us, and that she won’t take a step back to look at how her words and actions hurt everyone, but especially my siblings and their families, who have also had difficult and crappy years. I’ve tried to play peacemaker, tried not caring, tried talking to her… None has worked, and have left me sadder and have damaged my relationship with my siblings and their spouses.

The lowest point of our year was when we lost Willy’s Dad, after an eighteen month battle with cancer. It was rough on all of us, particularly in the last few months when we were here, and his family was in Toronto. We made lots of road trips, but not enough. I don’t wish that on anyone, watching someone who you love slowly lose their fight with cancer. It’s still very raw. Sadly, two of Willy’s closest friends lost their fathers shortly after, then one of those same friends lost the Uncle who had raised him. It was hard watching their families go through the same sadness that we were still going through.

The lils and I spent much of the first four months of the year sick. They caught everything that was going, and managed to pass most on to me. I lost count, but Woo had croup at least eight times and Goose twice between January and March, meaning many a sleepless night for all of us. They also had their fair share of ear infections, lung infections, a bout of Roseola for Goose and an asthma diagnosis for Woo. The late winter and early spring was not fun in this house. It is too bad that our doctor, the pharmacy and the after-hours clinic don’t give out loyalty points, as we were frequent fliers. I have gotten to the point where I flinch every time one of the lils sneezes or coughs, expecting the sickness to return.

We had our fair share of injuries this year, from my spectacularly awesome ability to not catch a ball and end up with a broken nose, to Woo’s myriad of head injuries, including one the other night where he fell off the couch into the glass coffee table, Willy’s herniated disk in his back and separated shoulder, and the time that Woo sent Goose to the hospital after pushing her over in her highchair. She didn’t suffer any great injury, but it left a lasting impression on me.

My job has also been a source of stress and unhappiness, not because I am unhappy in my job, but because the agency that I work for is without core, sustaining funding. Instead of helping people, one of my top priorities is now finding projects and grants that can be used to help us carry out our work and keep our doors open. It is not fulfilling, and makes going to work suck some days.

I am not going to pin my hopes on 2011 being a better year, but I am going to slam the door on 2010. There is very little that I want to look back on, so I am going to move forward and build on the positives in my life. Willy and I are happy. We have a wonderful little family that amuses and amazes us daily. My extended family is still very much in my life, and I do love having them there. I have good friends who care for and support me, for which I am grateful. Thanks to twitter and some local blogs that I read, I have met some wonderful people who I would not have otherwise met, and that is both great and cool. I have also rediscovered a love of taking pictures, and this will continue to be my escape and my favourite hobby. You won’t see me complaining about last year anymore though, as I am locking the door on all this crappy stuff.

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A few weeks ago some friends on twitter started talking about doing the 100 push-up challenge, and I got it in my head that this was something that I should agree to doing. This doesn’t make much sense for me, as I have ALWAYS hated doing push-ups, and never been able to do any great number without almost having a heart attack from the exertion, looking like a tomato in the process. So I give up, and vow never to waste my time doing a push-up ever again.  Yet here I was, agreeing to start a six week plan that could get me to 100 push-ups.

Willy and I have contemplated starting this in the past, but have never actually started together.  He started once, but did not make it much further than a week into the plan.  I’ve always been somewhat scared, and also somewhat skeptical.  I didn’t think that there was anything that could guide me to doing 100 push-ups, not in six weeks, not in sixty.  Still I started and didn’t tell him, as I didn’t want him to beat me at it :).

Three weeks in, I believe. Starting this, I would not have guessed how quickly I would see a difference in the number of push-ups that I could do, and how much push-up make a difference in my biceps and pecs.  There have been a couple of stumbles where I haven’t gotten my three workouts in in a traditional week (what – your week isn’t eight days long???), and many a day where I have been really sore.  The first week was a hard adjustment for me, even though the demands were not too great, the recovery was longer than I thought it would be.  The third seems to be kicking it up a notch, so that I am just on the edge of not being able to complete the sets, and jello arms for a long time after. But I am still with it.

Today?  I did 100 push-ups.  It was over five sets, but it was still 100. When I started this, my initial test result was 12, and it damn near killed me. I didn’t try it, but know that there is no way I could have done even one more in another set that day.  I am not saying that I will be able to finish this in the six weeks that some can finish in, but I am OK with that. I’ll keep going to see how far along I make it, but even if I don’t get much farther, I’m really happy I am doing it!

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Last evening I was sitting in the kitchen with the lil peeps when the phone rang.  I picked it up, noting that the display was telling me “name and phone number unavailable”.  I answered, and the caller asked for me by my first name.  I let him know that he had reached me, and he identified himself as a reporter who was doing a story on something related to my work, and he wondered if I would be available for comment.

I was floored.  “This is my home you have called” I said, hoping that he would realize just how wrong this was, and that would be the end of it.  It wasn’t. He explained that he called my office, and heard on the machine that it was closed, but he was really hoping for a comment.  He failed to mention that the message also says to leave a message, and that calls will be returned. Apparently this was lost on him.

Other than my name, my personal contact information is in no way linked to my professional contact information. I have never had anyone that I work with call me at home, in the ten years that I have been working in this field. It was shocking to me, and I asked him how he got my number.  He let me know that I was the first hit on Canada411, and his tone told me that this in some way made it acceptable to him.  I tried to explain that this crossed a line, and that he should have some boundaries.  He was unapologetic, taking our executive director’s media contact information and seeking that all important quote.

I work in the criminal justice field, helping those who are harmed by violent crime.  The vast majority of the people who I work with have lost a loved one to homicide.  It can be a very demanding and draining job, but I love what I do and the people who I help.  I do not, however, bring my job home with me.  This is in part to preserve my mental health, but also because my family is not prepared for, nor should be hearing, the things that I hear of on any given day.  This call came in at 4:40 on a weekday, when I was with my very young children.

He didn’t know that I have young children at home, but they are only part of the reason why I am upset about this call.  I just can’t fathom why he thought it was acceptable to search me out.  The issue he was calling about was old news, something that our office had commented on a week prior.  This was neither a scoop nor pressing news, yet he still felt it justified and necessary that he call my house. I am thankful that this was an isolated case, but saddened by his cavalier attitude and implication that this was somehow my fault for having an unusal last name, and daring to have my phone number listed.

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Today was a day of ups and downs. It started late and was filled setbacks and chance returns to being on schedule. Both Willy and I were afflicted, and had to overcome forgotten grocery lists on an early run before coffee, a forgotten wallet with a cart full of goodies at Canadian Tire, running out of money on a Christmas shopping tour and the normal hiccups that occur in the course of the day. Somehow we kept our sanity and managed to get most things done.

By the end of the day we had but one thing left on the to-do list, today’s 25 days of Christmas activity of donating our empty beer and wine bottles to the Christmas Exchange at out local beer store. I had mixed feelings about including this as a family activity, but we want to show the lils some of the small things that we can do to help others out, so we kept it on the list. As luck would have it, Willy ran in to some bad customer service while on the last set of errands late in the day so were rushed leaving the house. He had also noticed that the closest beer store was not collecting earlier in the day, so we headed to the bigger store near our house. I tried to verify that they were collecting and noticed that the bottle drive ended at 5:00pm. It was 5:02. We headed there anyway, figuring that we would at least cash in the empties and make a donation later if they were gone for the day.*

We arrived minutes later, and noted that they had been collecting donations at this location, but were gone. We parked the car and decided to get beer now too – we were at the beer store after all. I asked Willy if he and the lils were coming in, and he gave me the “why not” shrug. I ran in to get a cart** and he got the lils out of the car. Once I loaded the boxes on the cart, Woo asked if he could get on. We figured it was harmless, and let both he and Goose climb on. They were pretty cute about it, Woo putting his arm around her so she would not fall off, her eyes lighting up like it was the most fun she had ever had.

When I went in to get the cart, I had noted that there were a number of people turning in empties, and warned Willy of the potential wait. What I had not realized was that there weren’t actually a large number of people turning in empties, there two guys returning a lot of empty bottles and cans. I don’t mean a couple of carts full of empties, there must have been at least 50 two-fours, and many, many bags of cans. They entire beer store stank that really old stale beer smell, they were still unpacking, and we were behind them! Turns out that the line was allowed to move around them, thankfully. They unloaded cans the entire time we were there, faithfully counting them aloud. They kept asking for more garbage cans to put them in, the whole time we were there. That must have been quite the party!

I thought that the lils would get tired of the ride when we got in line and stopped moving, but they didn’t. They just kept asking us to keep them moving. So I did what any parent in this situation would do, I spun them around in circles, like an amusement park ride, empties and all. They loved it even more now, and kept saying “again Mommy, again!” It felt very wrong.

We got to the front of the line, and I emptied the cart. Goose and Willy had wandered off at this point, but Woo was still with me. As soon as he saw the cart was empty he pounced on it and, while I ordered the beer, drove it over to Willy. His sister hopped on the cart and he started pushing her around the store. I managed to convince him to drive her over to the cart corral, and steered them to join me in the entrance while waiting for Willy. I took my off of Goose and she made a gleeful break for the outside, right into the parking lot. I ran after her and managed to almost catch her as she tripped and went sprawling to the ground. Her hands were now dirty and her pride was hurt. She burst into tears.

I carried my howling little girl to the car, hanging my head in shame. How could such a well-intentioned outing go so bad? Did it really look as bad as it felt?? Usually when we go out, we get the occasional “look at how cute/busy/well-behaved your children” are comments. There were none of those tonight.

* we ended up donating online via their website

** yes, we needed a cart. It’s been a while since we returned empties, I swear!

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I have  a post up at Kids in the Capital today, talking about our weekend baking!

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Our 25 days of Christmas (which I will likely post a lot about this month) is going really well.  In addition to lighting the Christmas lights for the first time, we’ve written letters to Santa, decorated the family room, bought and donated toys to Toy Mountain, baked shortbreads, and made a gingerbread house.  The lils have really gotten into it too.  Woo walked into the house on friday and asked “do we have a christmas activity for today?”  They have both asked at least once a day ever since. I love how easily this has become a daily event for us!

I, however, have not fully thought this through.  The activities have been great fun, especially for Woo and Goose, but the last couple have focused on baking, and sweet treats.  The shortbreads that we made are delicious, and reminded me that I have ABSOLUTELY no will power when it comes to shortbread.  Their buttery, sugary goodness with a cherry on top is completely irresistible.  I think that I have eaten at least 18 cookies out of the six dozen cookies that we made today alone!  I am scared, because we need to make more for our guests arriving in a couple of weeks.  This is not going to end well for my waistline!

Today’s activity was a gingerbread house.  I caved and bought the kit from Loblaws, as I have never successfully made one from scratch, they always fall down under the weight of the icing.  I suspect that it has something to do with the fact that I start decorating too soon.  I did not want that to happen to their first gingerbread house, so kit we bought.

We set to it after “nap”*, when only the three of us were home. This was a tactical error, as it meant that I was helping both of them, catching the candies that were dropping all over the floor (those little sugar balls are hard to hold on to, apparently), and trying to take pictures.  There was no one to watch the candy eating, either.  I think that they were pretty good about it, but they very rarely get candy, so they were pretty crazy by the end.  Woo only put the icing bag in his mouth once. I am pretty sure I caught him before he ate too much!

We did settle in to a good routine after the initial excitement, and both lils were very keen on their decorating.  They each did one tree, and half of the roof. It took about an hour, and both wanted to do another tomorrow.  They ran around like crazy people for about an hour after dinner, and then both crashed pretty quickly.  Here is our finished product.  There are a few more pictures on my flickr stream.

*no one napped today, which is not the norm for Goose.  This may have contributed to the early crash.*

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