To Everything There Is A Season

I have been so preoccupied this week that I didn't realize until I got some nudging from readers that I had missed posting--yesterday. The end of July marked the conclusion of preschool for my newly five year old, Lanes, and apparently the commencement of palpitations for me. My baby is growing up, I have to find a job and fix my liver, and my web surfing spouse, P, wants us to move out of our crazy a$$ ghetto fabulous apartment. It's going to be a long August.

I was so engrossed in Lanes that everything else was shelved. The end of preschool made it seem so real how fast she is growing up. I don't know what happens during school hours, but that teacher has raised some good kids. I sometimes wonder if there is some magic dust there that I could get a stash of. Somehow when this teacher disciplines them she is still loved and adored. When I try using her exact words, Lanes wants to exchange me for my nutty sister. If only she knew my sibling was waiting to take custody of her, I'd be in some serious doo doo.

Any old how, this kindergarten thing is giving me heartburn--or it could be the chicken burger I just snuck in. I always thought this would be Lanes' journey and she would be the one feeling the excitement and anxiety that goes with starting school and making new friends. I would be in the sidelines, cheering, encouraging, comforting and getting into flaps on her behalf. However, it seems like I might be the one taking the transition badly!

I hope I don't resort to peeking through windows or pretending to be a really tall five year old to be with her. In North America they don't take kindly to adults lurking around kids so I guess I'll have to drop her off and get my not so stealth self home where I should be in theory job searching.

All this TV watching has me worried about the other kids. I hope it's ok to give any aggressive children the stink eye. Hopefully, we've given Lanes all the tools she needs to take care of herself. Luckily, she only uses her mean left hook at night when she is fast asleep after she has crawled into our bed.

To top it all off, she lost a tooth for the first time this week. It was wiggly for six days and finally, I'm sure with some well applied pressure by little hands when I was not looking, it came out. It was so tiny! Like half a grain of white rice. I was terrified I'd misplace it. I misplace everything--the house keys, my sunglasses, various debit cards (don't tell P), my mind (P is well aware of this).

While I was trying to find a safe place to put the tooth, Lanes was so excited she was running up and down screeching with joy and admiring the gap in her bottom teeth in every mirror in our apartment. I told her she looks like a little pirate and that delighted her even more. That's my girl!

The next morning she reverently held onto the coin the Tooth Fairy gave her and gently placed it in her handbag, along with all the other shiny things she has pocketed from around my bedroom. After I post this, I must look for my keys in there.

The other reason I have not been able to do much this week is that P keeps surfing the web to find townhouses for rent.  He has decided he needs to move onwards and upwards from apartment living and that he needs a small backyard. Not to mention he was sick of water cuts, rib crushing elevator doors and cranky neighbors who collect bottles and keep them in strollers in the hallway.

I call this house hunting P's wild goose chases because he has to drag us along to check out the places even though he knows heart of hearts something in the ad had a deal breaker for us. I don't mind looking at places with P if they were good bets. For instance, this weekend he made us look for a townhouse that we would have to buy a dishwasher, washer/dryer for--and it's just a rental! Economically and logically it didn't make sense.

Before that we looked at a place that had carpeting that looked like it was from a trailer in the '80s, complete with ankle breaking rocks leading up to the doorway. Then there was another in a town I refused to commute to should I ever get a job in the city. I humored P and said it better be spectacular for me to ever even think of agreeing but I'd go for his sake.

Turns out it was a lovely place with lots of kids Lanes' age. Sadly, they had given it out to some other party just when we turned our application in. Just as well since they were running credit checks on each adult applying and I have no job. Well at least one that pays with money instead of sticky kisses from a cute preschooler.

Seems like we are stuck in ghetto fab. It has grown on me, like a wart or the mold that grows freely on on our walls.  Right now, my mind is focused on Lanes' school and the blaring hole in my resume, as gaping as the space between  Lanes' bottom teeth, where in I have taken time off to do the mothering thing.

I wish I could put that on my resume. I'd have so many titles:  event planner, executive chef, nurse, general manager, drill sergeant, benevolent dictator, and guidance counsellor to name a few.  The possibilities are endless, and apparently thankless. So that's why I look at jobs online in a zombie like state.  I need a resume fix me upper.

Meanwhile all these things have been giving me indigestion and my liver started to hurt for the first time in months. I have not been so good with the diet part since we left for the Motherland. I had to visit my homeopathy doctor last night and I felt like I got caught toilet papering the school and I was sitting in the Principal's office waiting for my mother to come and get me.

I felt most shame faced when the doctor peered over his glasses accusingly at me. I thought a confessional would fall from the sky and I would have to jump in and confess my culinary sins and drop and give him twenty.

I didn't want to tell him about the fifteen iced cafe mochas I had in the motherland, each time telling myself it was 'just this once'. Or about the hot butter cuttlefish I was guzzling at 10.30pm on a Thursday night. If he only knew. I'd be in so much trouble.

So now I'm back to my no caffeine, no dairy, no chocolate, no spice, have to eat before 7pm diet. Plus, I have to walk for an hour everyday--which I'll start on tomorrow. Right after I do my resume. I'd say I'll send it in somewhere, but that is probably not going to happen. Perhaps I'll stick to walking--baby steps.

On that bright note, I should sign off and make dinner as per the requirements of my diet. Hopefully my liver and I will be in a better frame of mind next blog! More musings from BC next week...