The Greatest Things

I feel that I've been successful at work. I think that I've done Good Things™. Things that I've been proud to have done and have others use to make their (work) lives easier and a bit better.

I come home and look at the messy house, the stuff I have to clean off of the picture frames / walls in the kitchen, the stains that I don't think I'll ever get out, the piles of unwashed or washed and unfolded laundry, and the drywall that needs to be repaired in many places.

I look at my kids.

They are the thing that I'm most proud of. The thing that I'm happiest to have played a part in. I feel that raising our kids will be my greatest work, my magnum opus.

I smile as I settle into a couch cushion on the floor surrounded by drifts of toys.

Smiles

I'm very lucky, I have a digital picture frame on my desk at work. It makes me smile a dozen times a day. I really am happy with our family, even if there are rough patches.

Patches being lack of sleep, or doing so much for The Littles. The other day I left work at 4 pm, picked up the younger 2, went home, got dinner, the nighbours dropped off Alice (thank FSM for that), got them fed, brushed, storied, and eventually in bed around 9 pm. When the kids are older, what else am I going to do with that 5 hour window? Unfortunately this usually means by 9:30 pm rolls around my brain is just so dead that I can't do creative things like blogging. I miss blogging. I miss documenting the little things that the kids do to make me smile. But I know that this will come back. It's just a bit of a slog until then.

But do you know what you can do with the kids when it's a tough slog? Cuddle them. Race them. Tickle, dance, hug away their tears, play I-spy, hop on 1 foot, talk about Spider-Man, watch them discover things for the first time, help them learn. In other words it's not all bad.

I'm extremely lucky with how much time I can spend with the kids and Laura. It doesn't seem fair in the world. It's not. But I'll still take it.

Now to end this to see if I can help a crying toddler.

New level, sort of like the last

Today I signed the paperwork for me going from an acting position to it being permanent. I'm very glad that people like what I do enough to think that I can do more. I think that I could do a lot more too, but like everything in government right now that is tied to the unmovable mountain of SSC. I've got plans, but at this point it looks like people much higher in the chain can't move them either. So it's not me and I can rest easy that it's not a personal failure.

This position feels like a unicorn that I found eating carrots in my vegetable garden, while realizing that I never planted a vegetable garden.

I try to work well. I think that I do. I'm told that I do.

It's nice that this has happened. It's nice to feel that people are happy with my work.

Family is good

Things are good. Kids are super cute. Lucy is saying more and more "words" all the time. I want to document them but by the evenings I'm just... done. So done. Zero energy. Kind of thing that I'm too tired to watch a show, too awake to sleep, ...

Things will get less sleepy in the future. I'll make more sense. Write more worth reading.

Just not yet. Not yet.

Stroke

Yesterday Laura's mom had a stroke. This is completely out of the blue and just... weird. This is not something that anyone expected. It sounds like she'll be okay. It's scary though.

I've been thinking about her a lot today. I'm worried.

A hard time saying goodbye

Isaac is having a hard time with Great Grandma being gone. He'll ask his cousins if they miss great grandma, and when they say yes he'll say in the saddest voice "I miss great grandma too".

The other day he asked to see GG and I told him no, she died. She was gone. He asked if she went far away. I asked him if it would help to think that she was far away. Again, in the saddest voice he says "no, not really".

Every time my eyes well up as my heart breaks a little bit more.

Tonight he asked to go back to where we interred GG's ashes soon. We asked why (since it's a 4+ hour drive away) and he said so we can see if GG is alive again.

It's a lot for a 3.5 year old.

He's got a lot of questions, and they seem to pop up randomly. I'm not sure if he's thinking about it even more than he's saying. It's going to take a while I think.

It's hard to be creative

The "kids" have not blogged in quite a while. I feel bad about it, but I'm not really fixing it. At the end of the days when the kids are in bed is when I've got time to actually sit down and write things out, but I just don't have the energy or focus to "tell a story". I can brain dump (like this), but to weave a narrative is simply out of reach.

I feel broken most of the time.

I think that it's the poor sleeping.

But there are so many things that I want to write down. Things that the kids say and do. Things that I sadly know that I will forget, if for a time until I come across a picture, video, or blog post. Then I'll go "Oh yaaaa... I forgot they did that."

Alice

• How she's so damn clever and figures out 8 steps ahead when I've only mentioned that there are 2
• How proud she is of riding a two wheeler
• How much she conspires with the boy next door to get into trouble
• How she asks to do "na na na" dancing but she's just too heavy for me to hold her with one arm and it breaks my heart each time I say no
• How she's looking forward to going into grade 1 and how she's been working so well at her feelings
• How much she loves her siblings

Isaac

• How quickly he seems to pick up every sport
• How he still won't dress himself
• How he'll ask "Who made dinner?" and when told will turn to that person and say "Oh thank you for for making such a nice dinner!" and then promptly not eat any of it
• How he still doesn't sleep, but he's a snuggler
• How he will do almost anything his sister asks as long as he's not under duress
• How everything is a sword or gun. Sometimes both
• How fast he is on his BB8 bike (with training wheels)
• How he still can't eat many textures and ends up spitting them out
• How much he loves his siblings

Lucy

• How she can sign things like "more", "all done", and "milk"
• How (I swear) she says "tank koo" to me
• How she won't fall asleep in her crib, I have to cuddle her to sleep
• How she won't stand or crawl, but bum scoots around
• How she doesn't like soft toys, only hard toys / books. Will fall asleep clutching them
• How she doesn't want to be held, but if I'm on the ground she'll scoot over and try to get into my lap by putting feet first and pulling herself in
• How she does the eye bat, head tilt smile like Alice did and it's so damn cute
• How much she loves her siblings