I have always prided myself on my great memory. I can recall* or piece together events long past by dredging up just a scrap of information.  My family always calls on me to figure out when things happened, or who was there (Well, it was summertime because I was wearing my jean shorts and I cut those jeans into shorts after watching Dirty Dancing, which I watched with T, so that must have been the summer after Grade 10…etc)

But my recall is starting to fail me and it is driving me nuts.  Don’t worry, I’m not experiencing a scary probably an illness memory loss, I just can’t remember as much of the details of my kids’ babyhoods as I would like.  I think the combination of unfamiliarity, sleep-deprivation, and kid-juggling has made my detail oriented recall fail me and I don’t like it.

I know I don’t NEED to remember everything, I certainly don’t care for the daily details of my own babyhood – a broad sketch is more than enough, but I want to remember more.  I have never been more acutely aware of the passing of time than I have since the boys arrived, and I know I can never have those ages back – I will never again have a newborn and a three year old, I will never again have a child in grade two and another months away from kindergarten.  I want to freeze each moment in time and save it to visit later.

And like I’ve said before, it’s not just the way things look or the things the kids say that I want to save (although I want all them too) – it’s the feeling of little arms around my neck, the way a soft cheek presses against mine, the lovely physicality of this stage of mothering, the same physicality that can be overwhelming – those intangibles, that I want to fold in wax paper and press between the pages of a book.

It makes me sad just to think about it, knowing that I will probably forget today, and that yesterday is already partially gone.  Perhaps ina few years the boys will be filling me in on their early childhood “Well, I was wearing my spiderman shirt with the long sleeves, so that must have been when I was four…”

*I know that you change a memory everytime you dig it out of your brain, I believe that the core, and at least some of the feelings are accurate.

PS – Sorry for the radio silence,  we were getting some house repairs done and computer time was at a premium.

This entry contains spoilers for the Firefly episode ‘War Stories.’ Read at your own risk.

Even though the rest of the world has been singing its praises for lo these many years, I was unaware of the Firefly series until Mark gave it to me for my birthday back in November.

I love it, of course. Cool, well-developed characters, strong women (and men), interesting situations, quirky humour, handsome men. It’s very much my thing and I’ve watched the episodes several times over since November.

The Man and I watched one of my favourites the other day. As someone in a lovely, strong relationship, I like to see good relationships on screen.

TV marriages seem to be all about stereotypes, nagging shopping women, lazy stupid men and people who can no longer even be kind to each other. I hate that.

Zoe and Wash, in Firefly, don’t have that sort of thing. They seem like real people in a strong relationship. Even though they have their disagreements, they have an almost visible bond, and they enjoy each others’ company (ahem). It’s refreshing to see that and I like any episode shows new aspects of their relationship.

So in the episode we watched the other night (War Stories), Wash is feeling jealous of Zoe’s history with the Captain (Nathan Fillion as Mal Reynolds – mmmm!) and they have a disagreement. As a result, Wash ends up on a mission with Mal and they get captured and tortured.

Zoe comes to rescue them and the villain (Niska) plans to cause further agony by making her choose whether to rescue the Captain or her husband.  She hands over some money and the exchange goes like this:

Excerpt from : http://www.twiztv.com/scripts/firefly/season1/firefly-109.htm

NISKA (cont’d): Not enough for two. But sufficient, perhaps, for one.
She looks at him. Sees where this is going.

NISKA (cont’d) :So you now have a question to make an answer. It is for you, pretty lady, and only you, now to ch–

ZOE (cuts him off): Him.

She points at Wash. Niska’s a bit thrown.

ZOE (cont’d) I’m sorry. You were going to ask me to choose, right? Didja wanna finish?
Off Niska, open-mouthed, still back at the not-being-able-to- get-his-sentence-out moment —

Now clearly there is more going on here that ‘Zoe loves her husband’  – the Captain can probably withstand the torture better, he’d probably tell her to take Wash instead of him,  she would want to settle the bad feelings from earlier and so on.  But she didn’t hesitate,  she just picked her husband.  

To me that came across like: Sure, she is loyal to the Captain but Wash is her HUSBAND.  He’s the man she chose to marry, the man she loves, and that goes beyond loyalty , beyond the logical decision, it goes right to the heart. And I love to see that sort of genuine, strong feeling portrayed on screen.

Sometimes one of my sons will do something that mirrors a habit of my husband’s and he will look at me with an apology in his eyes because I have to deal with a double (or triple) dose of whatever the habit is.  And I look right back at him and say ‘With the kids, I had to take what I got, but I CHOSE you, and I would do it again in a heartbeat. So them being like you? Not a problem.”  

That’s what a good marriage feels like.  I’ll take it.

*See why I like this show? the dame comes to the rescue!

I was talking with my friend D the other day on MSN and we were musing about how people are always asking about stuff that’s none of their business. When are you getting married? When are you having kids? Why isn’t your kid in that class? Have you tried diet x?

Sure, sometimes these questions are just a way of showing interest in your life but when you are asked them over and over again, they feel intrusive. Especially if it is something that is bothersome to you.

That’s when I realized what a relief it is not be asked about how my kids are sleeping anymore. When it takes 2.5 years for them to learn to sleep for any length of time, you get a lot of inquiries on your kids sleep habits and about what you’ve done to ‘correct’ them.

And again, while most of these inquiries are by concerned people, some of them are intrusive. And those intrusive ones imply that you are somehow failing yourself and your child by not undertaking the method the asker approves of. It’s damn annoying.

Someday soon I’m going to do a sleep fact sheet for this site so people who are getting a lot of crap about how their kids sleep can have some more information at their disposal.

In the meantime, check out this post on Ask Moxie.  In fact, check out her posts on anything you need to know as a parent, she’s AWESOME.

So, I’ve always been someone who liked to define success on her own terms. To learn on my own, to read up on topics and take the parts I need, to scorn anything that required me to meet anyone else’s standards.

Lately, however, I have realized that this attitude, while it serves me well in self-esteem and self-definition, is not exactly a growth mentality.

If I never allow myself to be evaluated by objective* criteria, how am I going to grow? How I am going to get any better?

Last week I happened on an online writing course being offered by the authors of a writing book I like. My first thought was ‘Nah, I already know how to write.” And normally that’s where I’d stop. This time I picked up on the fear and arrogance behind that statement. How arrogant of me to operate as if I already know all there is to know about writing. And how fearful of me not to want to be evaluated on my writing. Sure the criteria might not be objective, but the evaluation might be helpful.

I had a similar string of thoughts about Tae Kwon Do recently, too. Not that I know everything about that, I know hardly anything, but I am considering joining a class with The Boy in the fall (he’s already in a kids’ class, this would be the regular one) and I was immediately struck with the fear of being tested for my belts.

That’s right, folks, afraid of being tested for a class I haven’t started yet. Healthy, hey?

I’m not sure how to get past this but I am going to assume that babysteps is the way to go. I am going to take an online writing course, and then talk to some people about TKD.

Can you innoculate yourself against this sort of fear by exposing yourself to small fearful things at first and then building over time?

*I am never sure when criteria is ‘objective’ that’s part of the problem. I like to protect myself from unnecessary subjective evaluations when possible.

I feel like I have lost my blog voice. 

Once upon a time, let’s, for the sake of argument, call it 2003, I had a definite voice.  It was a chatty, friendly sort of tone that referenced personal goings-on without getting into too much detail.  I had shout-outs to friends and family who were helping me out, or doing something cool,  and I used a lot of brackets and asterisks.

Somehow in the time since then I have gotten more formal.  I think that as my time to write got shorter I became more conscious of what I was saying and how I was saying it.  I also discovered some other blogs with similar quirks (shocking! I know!) and that put me off  a bit – I didn’t want to seem like I was copying them.

Anyway, I’m trying to get back to frequently blogging, I think that frequency will bring back the voice I liked and help me ditch the self-consciousness.

Let’s see how that pans out.