Who are the budding criminals in your neighbourhood?

I'm pleased to say that I am still feeling significantly better than I have the last few weeks. I'm well aware that depression is a cruel mistress and can come back to scratch my face and boil the family rabbit at any time, but so far the restraining order I filed against her seems to be working. That crazy bitch can take her ice pick and go elsewhere.

... Wait. That was a different movie. A movie with no panties. A naughty movie.

One of the great things about breathing in some happy is that I'm finding stuff funny again. Not in a manic way where one might laugh at a car accident or something terribly unfunny, but in slightly more appropriate stuff that makes me want to write a blog post. For example: graffiti.

Being a writer, I react strongly to the poor use of language. If I'm in a bad mood, I scowl and point my Mavenly finger at the defilement in question. Double negatives, for example. I ain't got no time for those unless they're in rock lyrics. A surefire way to get a laugh at parties is to casually slip a double negative into conversation and watch me wince as I try to find my happy place again.

If I'm in a good mood, however, I find bad English ridiculously amusing. If it happens to be scrawled upon a wall and I just happen to have my trusty smartphone with me, I will take a picture of the crime scene so we can make fun of it together. I'm nice like that.

Now, a bit of a disclaimer: I live in suburbia. This is not urban graffiti which can sometimes pull off the title of art.  This is lame spraying and engraving created by bored, over-priviledged kids who go all emo because their step-daddies didn't buy them the right colour iPod for graduation, those bastards.  Let's look at our first shining example found last night at the park:

Well, I don't know about you, but I'm feeling like I might not want to bump into this pre-teen in the dark. Anybody who smokes at the park and then announces it with a can of paint is terribly badass.

Let me tell you, it was really fun explaining to the boys why someone would A) choose to deliberately breathe carcinogens and/or illegal substances into their systems and then B) choose to commemorate the event on a wall right next to the play structure.

Next up, I bring you to my seven-year-old's school, where we went to shoot some b-ball a few days ago. This is where we found this on a picnic table:

In case you can't quite make this out - and believe me, it took me a while to decode the mysteries of this text - it says

"Jastin Biber eats poo."

I don't really disagree with this statement, to be honest. However, it takes a sharp eye and a great deal of patience to be able to read it.  I just wish it were written properly so that this important message of truth could be shared more readily with the masses. This is where the gift of language is so important, kids.

Last but not least, this steaming pile of cryptic crap was left on a neighbouring schoolyard table:

*Ahem*

Let me try and type this with a straight face.

"Poo lick to weare derdie underpant"

I totally failed at that. I snickered when writing "poo" and was in full blown belly laughs by "underpant."  I could never be a standup comedian.

My best guess is that this is a play on a line in the first Alvin and the Chipmunks live action movie. In one scene, Alvin sings "Dave likes to wear dirty underwear!"

It was pretty funny in the movie.

This graffiti is funny in a different way. It's funny in a disturbing way. Who is Poo, and why does he lick Derdie's underpant? That's disgusting.

It's so poorly written that I want to find out who wrote it and drop by their place with a sympathy card for the parents and a dictionary for the kid. If this child speaks English as their first language, it is time to hire a tutor, stat. If English is new to them, then it's time to have a talk about defiling public places in the child's strongest language.  If you're going to do it, do it right. There's a song about that.

I would very much like to see a higher calibre of graffiti in my neighbourhood. Frankly, I'm a little worried about our future generation. They seem nearly illiterate and/or completely lacking in creativity. When I was in grade 5, I carved stick figures doing rude stuff into a wooden play structure at that same school*, and I am quite sure I spelled "they are doing sexy things" properly.

Read to your kids, folks. Teach them how important language is. Then they can break the law better, like me.

*A teacher at the school heard about my defilement, came by my house and made me not only apologize, but remove my graffiti. Thus was the end of my budding career of petty crime. Now I'm just a mom.


** I had to edit this post twice to fix spelling and grammatical mistakes. Maybe I should just give up and  find a picnic table.

One Year Later

I can't believe it's been an entire year.

A year since my son got frighteningly sick with what was at first a mystery illness for several days. A year since he suddenly spiked a fever of 104f that wouldn't come down, and slept all day and all night with only brief periods where he would wake up and drink something.

Nearly a year since I rushed him into the hospital with sores all over his mouth, where I was told he could be dying; since I signed consent forms and we waited - for results, for answers, for some sign that he was going to be okay; since I walked around in a daze and prayed to an entity I don't fully believe in to please make this a bad dream and please - please - just wake me up.

Only a few days short of a year since I watched his eyes turn red, saw his swollen insides on an ultrasound screen, his blistered lips caked with scabs, his peeling hands and feet. Since we counted the symptoms: 1, 2, 3, 4 and a stubborn high fever, and realized this couldn't be anything but Kawasaki Disease, thank the Powers that Be, because the alternatives were far scarier and deadlier.  We treated that night, and waited. It was the longest night of my life.

The next morning, he woke up from his listless state and looked at me. He ate some Doritoes - his first meal in days. He was pale, shaky, one of his eyes wasn't working properly. His heart was slightly enlarged from the disease and that made his prognosis worse, even with treatment. It would still be weeks before Kawasaki ran its full course and did any possible permanent damage. But he was okay: alive, breathing, here with us. And that meant I was okay, too.

Except I wasn't, and I wouldn't be for a long time. Spawnling's illness was the start of a downward slope for me that I didn't fully grasp until recently. It was a bumpy year to follow, which meant I didn't have time to fully process what had happened. I had to be strong, I had to try and keep it together for the things that were happening now: Gutsy's emotional state was deteriorating, our income dropped, a crazy (now ex-)friend faked cancer. So it sat in me and it festered for months. I didn't deal with it, I just pushed it back. Be strong, be happy, just be grateful he's here, I told myself.

But when I don't process stuff - go through the motions, have a few good cries, talk about it, maybe see a professional - I don't get better.  There were signs, little and big. For one, I haven't blogged in nearly three weeks. I dare you to find another time in my blogging history when I went that long between posts. In the last couple of months, I started sleeping more, eating less (not necessarily a bad thing in my case, to be honest), avoiding people and situations because I just felt too overwhelmed to deal with life. And bam! just like that: depression.

Yep, it's true: Just as things are getting a lot better around here, I was getting worse. It's as if I was finally giving myself permission to deal with my own shit because I'm not dealing with everyone else's. I was feeling down, crying over nothing, finding little joy in watching my healthy kids run and play and do childhood things that should warm my heart as a mother.

Depression. Why didn't I see it sooner?

Last week, I hit my bottom. I felt completely crippled by the darkness. Once upon a time, I had postpartum depression. This felt similar. So, I did what my therapist at the time taught me to do: I talked to Geekster and a handful of friends and I admitted that I just wasn't okay. The support I was received was stellar, and I instantly started to feel a little better.

Then, Saturday morning, I packed a bag and jumped in a car with my sister and a friend and we took off to upstate New York for a shopping extravaganza. The timing couldn't have been better. For two whole days I had no parental responsibilities, a sizeable shopping budget (we had been saving all year) and a whole lot of belly laughs. The weekend was perfect from start to finish. It refreshed me, reset me, centered me.  It was exactly what I needed.

More importantly, I bought a Coach purse. Now I'm trendy and centered.

When I got home, Spawnling ran up and threw his arms around me. He kissed me and stroked my hair, saying "I really missed you, Mommy." Frankly, I missed me, too. I missed the happy-go-lucky me. I missed enjoying life and the three little boys in it who need me to be in good form emotionally, mentally and physically.  I feel like maybe I can start to give them that again. They deserve it.

Last year sucked - there's no way around that. August will probably be a challenging month for a while to come. But I won't let the darkness creep up on me again. I'll recognize it and do what I need to do to make it disappear. Next time, I'll beat it to death with my new purse.

They're guaranteed for life, you know.

There's a Serial Killer in my House

I have a serial killer in my house. Oh sure, she hasn't hacked us to pieces yet, but it's only a matter of time.

See, I met her on the internet. And, as we all know, everybody online as an internet axe murderer. It's been shown countless times on news stations: If you meet somebody from the world wide web, they will inevitably stab you through the eyeball, as they laughing maniacally. 

I must have a death wish or I wouldn't have invited this demoness of the dark to Ottawa for a week. I would have continued our friendship through email, Facebook and other safe venues. I would have reminded myself that just because I've known her - or whatever persona she projects online to mask her evil - for about half my life, it's not safe to have her in my home, because she will eventually start keeping my body parts in my own fridge (talk about adding insult to injury).

Look, if CNN tells me I should worry, I obviously should. I'm a fool for ignoring their bright red warnings of the murder du jour flashing across my screen. Don't I know to look for the signs? They're so obvious:

1. She's from the internet. As was stated above, everyone from the internet (except me and people I know in real life) is aching to go on a murder spree.

2. She used to play online fantasy RPG games. She was obviously escaping into a world where murder was okay. If you're a Level 18 thief holding a knife with +2 backstabbing capabilities, think of the virtual guts you can spill. The psycho chick was undoubtedly getting off on the thrill. And aren't those Dungeons and Dragons people all  devil worshippers anyway?  I mean, except me.

3. She's met some mutual friends in person, but those people are also from the internets, so they're probably all in on this together, the murderous bastards they are. 

4. She's an IT professional. You know what those people are like. Fucking creepy is what. She probably perfects her terrifying sociopathic grin in the light of her work monitor, cackling as she codes in languages only the too-smart-to-be-stable understand. 

5. Her current hobby is being a reenactor. You know, those people who dress up in fake old clothes and run around pretending to kill the enemy for the delight of onlookers? Now, if you're going to have a hankering for butchery, what better way to get your jollies? There are swords, muskets, canons and other weapons of destruction at your fingertips, and you could probably get away with bringing them with you just about anywhere under the guise of reenacting. Nobody would even blink; it's genius! But my house psycho needs just a little more to get off. She plays a surgeon, with actual 18th century surgical tools.  My family is so done for. 

6. We took Spawnling to Build-A-Bear yesterday and she got him a stuffed animal because he didn't get to go camping with his brothers and dad this week. She's obviously trying to get me to let my guard down enough that she can slice my scalp off; Easier to do right now since a good portion of the Maven family is an hour away in a tent. Vulnerability is something serial killers feed on.

7. She met my mom and sister last night. This is a brilliant way of fooling those closest to me. That way, when my body is discovered in a quarry, my family will throw the popo off her trail by saying things like "It couldn't have been the houseguest. Not her. She was so nice!"

8. Have I mentioned she has an internet presence? 

Anyway, the whole thing is surely a big mistake. I don't even know if my will is up to date, and we certainly don't have a lot of life insurance on me. I probably should have taken care of my affairs before having knife-crazed 'netter into our home. Hindsight is always 20/20. Ironically, this is also the name of the program that a picture of my bloated corpse will show up on. 

Before I get axed - and not in the figurative, recessional way - I should update you on Spawnling. He has an ear infection which is now being treated with antibiotics. So not quite "just a fever" but definitely not something scary. Phew! Thanks for all the well wishes.

Anyone want to guest post on my blog while I'm getting strangled? 

Just a fever (I think)

Thursday night, Spawnling developed a fever. We were in the pool for about three hours with only minimal sunscreen application, so I assumed heat exhaustion and felt tremendously guilty for not being more vigilant.

Over 48 hours later, we're pretty sure it's not heat exhaustion. He still has a high fever, but absolutely no other symptoms. For the first day or so, it wasn't responding well to medication, but we seem to have it mostly under control now if we alternate between Tylenol and Advil. Back and forth, back and forth, like an adulterer on Jerry Springer.

Here's the thing: Spawnling got very sick last year. His first and only persistent symptom? A high fever that responded poorly to medication.  And even though my brain knows that my littlest gremlin is not having a second bout of scary illness, my heart has crawled up into my throat and won't leave until the fever does.

If I'm not mistaken, this is Spawn's first fever since he was blindsided by Kawasaki Disease in August of last year. If he has had others, I don't remember them, so they must have been fairly mild and accompanied by other symptoms that would make me think "Oh, it's just a little virus. Nothing to worry about."

And all I've done for the last three days is sit and watch him, feel his forehead, ask if anything hurts, give him medicine, follow him around, and make sure his lips aren't cracking and his hands aren't peeling and his eyes aren't bloodshot.

No, I beg you: Please try to contain all your envy of my latest hobby. I'm sure you have awesome stuff going on in your life, too.

I admit to being a total spaz. I admit that I'm overreacting and dwelling on the past too much. I don't like it and would do just about anything not to be sitting here fretting about my child's fever which is probably nothing more than a fever. But instead, I ran him into the local children's hospital at six this morning because his temperature was nearly 104f and not coming down fast enough with Advil.

I was running on three hours of sleep after going out with some of my awesome peeps last night for patio drinks (I, of course, got a little risky with not one, but two glasses of Diet Pepsi). Geekster pretty much forced me out when I tentatively asked if he'd mind holding down the fort. He could probably see my crazy starting to bubble up to the surface and figured he'd rather I not implode. I'm glad I went, but I did worry an awful lot while I was out despite the excellent company.  I fell asleep sometime after 2:30 and woke up at 6 when Geekster brought a very hot three-year-old into our bed. So, off to CHEO we went, Spawnling and I, with only a brief stop at a drive-thru for some essential - like, seriously essential and not pretend essential like usual - caffeine.

Diagnosis? Well, there is none, of course. He either has a virus (surprise!) or a reaction to some insect bites. Either way, there's not a whole lot anyone can do other than wait it out.

Oh, and maybe I could chill the fuck out a little in the meantime, too.

I wasn't like this before. Really, I wasn't. I left my paranoid new mother phase in a medical waiting room several years ago and never went back to claim her. I like not flying into a panic at the first touch of a hot forehead. I like scoffing at a sneeze, pshaw-ing a cough, shrugging off a runny nose. I was getting really good at saying "Sure, bad, scary, random things have happened to other kids I know and that's awful. But those are other kids, not my kids. I am so great at not making things all about me!"

Until, you know, it was my kid.

And when it was your kid, your perspective changes. I get that now. I wish I didn't. I wish I could ignorantly roll my eyes at me right now and tell me I'm being too emotional.

My goal over the next little while is to try and make a fever just a fever again. Meaning that I don't let my thoughts run away with me to the dark alley of what-ifs to perform dirty deeds with assumption, the lusty john that he is. I'm going to try and look at a sickly Spawnling as normal and not serious and not dangerous.

Logically, I know that everything will very likely be okay. When we do get his temperature under control, he acts completely normal. He has energy, he's chatty, he plays games, he has attitude - all good signs that this is mild, whatever it is. I loathe my inner panic button for not just letting me ride on logic. I never bought tickets to the emotional roller coaster and I do not wish to keep going around the track. Feeling suck. I think sociopaths are on to something. Is there an "off" switch somewhere?

In two days, if Spawnling's fever is not gone, I need to take him back to the hospital for testing. If any other symptoms of infection crop up before then, I need to bring him back sooner. But, of course, he will get better. The fever will break, and I will breathe a sigh of relief that it was, truly, just a fever this time.

Breathe, Maven. Just breathe. Focus on the good stuff, like how your friend is coming tomorrow from the US and you can try and pump her as full of Canadian misconceptions as humanly possible over the next six days. And how your older two are going camping with their dad and you'll only have the sickly Spawn to deal with, who will very likely have made a full recovery by then.

Just breathe. And quit whining. And go have another coffee, because that two hour nap you had earlier today isn't doing much for your mental state, obviously. You freaking basket case, you.

Since this post wasn't terribly funny (sorry, it's kind of hard to make anxiety over your child's health a ha-ha moment), I'll post a link to something I wrote last year about hospital wall art. I read it again recently and it made me laugh.

Take that back! I'm not lame, ok? I'm just that awesome.

The Kool-Aid Jammers Fiasco and Other Lowlights of the Week

What a week! I'm as exhausted as an extra in a Tae-Bo DVD. But I want to blog and I know that is so not going to happen tomorrow. We have a birthday party and I have to finish up a contract for that money stuff we spend way too much of.

The nice thing about night blogging is that I don't really think about what I'm writing. It just flows... Sometimes like a roaring river, sometimes like a sticky sewer line. Either way, I don't have to destroy any brain cells in the process. They're in short supply these days.

I know the highlight of the week was most definitely BOLO night, (here's a pic of me blogging out loud! Thanks jhscrapmom!) but the lowlight has a fair number of contenders. Let's take a look at the contestants, shall we?

Well, the van caught on fire and could have killed Spawnling and me. That was a double dose of unpleasantries right there. It doesn't get much lower than that... Or does it?

Oh, it does. All my children are home. Did that register? ALL MY CHILDREN ARE HOME. They are not at school. They are not in somebody else's care. They are in my home, fighting. They fight so much that if Super Nanny was here she would be rocking back and forth in a corner at the end of the day, sobbing and considering a career shift into something soothing, like pottery.

Also, all my children are... Wait. I said that already. Well, screw it. It deserves at least two paragraphs points. This is serious stuff right here, yo.

Not only are they fighting, but they're ganging up on me and bringing their friends along for the fun. On the way home from a perfectly lovely morning - a morning that I put off working and going to the passport office for so my kids could frolic at a splash park and play with their buddies - I had four children giggling and yelling "WE WANT SOMETHING! WE WANT SOMETHING! WE WANT SOMETHING!" all the way through the drive-thru. I couldn't hear a word the magic Tim Hortons speaker was asking me. I winged it and repeated the order twice, said "yes" a few times and "thank you" once. I have absolutely no idea how she even heard me or got the order correctly with all that racket in the background, but she's obviously a seasoned pro at handling unruly minivan mobs. And no, my friend Tracey and I did not get anything for the hollering horned ones in the backseat. We've been around the park a few times by now. I pulled my usual stunt of turning on Mr. Radio and turning him up just enough to drown out most of the protesting. It mostly worked until Spawnling threw a fit because he remembered I promised he could sit in the far back on the way home and was furious that I had completely forgotten. Never mind that he also forgot. Naturally, it's my fault. Sadly, the music doesn't go high enough to drown out three-year-old wailing.

Speaking of Spawnling, another fun time we had was yesterday, when I mistakenly allowed him to have not one, but two Kool-Aid Jammers. Or, as I like to call them, Food Dye in a Bag. I never buy the junk, but Gutsy begged and he was so good when we were out getting my passport photo. I temporarily lifted the ban on those evil things and allowed them into the house. Well, if I ever had any suspicions that my preschooler reacts poorly to artificial food colouring, they were confirmed yesterday afternoon. Once the Sugary Claws of Satan dug themselves into Spawnling, not even an exorcism would have helped. The boy was running in circles, screeching, flailing his arms and whacking anyone who got in the way. My friend Robyn had come over with her children and likely regretted it the minute she set foot in the kitchen. I'd like to say Spawnling took great pleasure in tormenting her three-year-old daughter, but that wouldn't be fair. I don't think he had any clue what he was doing or how to control it. Robyn and I spent a good hour waiting for his head to start spinning. Needless to say, Kool-Aid Jammers are now completely banned from Casa Maven until further notice.

(Incidentally, Maven, when you decide to remove food dye from your preschooler's diet for a few weeks, do not let your seven-year-old buy one of those fake fruit rolls and eat it in front of him. Bribing Spawnling with popcorn, chips, and anything else with a natural hue to it becomes an impossibility. Then, especially after a long day of van tantrums, you'll probably cave and give him a very small piece, which will be just enough to see him go all Mr. Hyde in a busy mall on Friday evening. However, I suppose you don't need brains if you have all that beauty, right Maven? You twit.)

Finally, nestled snuggly between the Van Wailin' concert and boarding the Hyperactivity Express at Carlingwood Mall was my trip to the passport office. See, I've never had a passport. When you become a mom at 20 and choose to live on one income so you can be a stay-at-home-mom and eat bonbons all day, there is truly no need for passports until the USA - the only place you can feasibly afford to visit from time to time - makes travel impossible without one. Since I'm going for an overnight to Syracuse, NY in a few weeks, I decided I should probably get on the whole passport thing. The problem is, I'm a bit of a spaz in government offices. My anxiety levels shoot up as I wonder if I filled my forms out correctly; if they'll accept my tattered birth certificate that's seen a lot of abuse since it was issued in '93; or if they'll call my guarantor and ask impossible questions to prove my identity, like what I take on a baked potato.

The office was fairly quiet and the whole process took less than 30 minutes, but in that time I envisioned everything from them revoking my ID to giving me a full cavity search (and not the cute guy behind counter #5, but Hilda the snaggle-toothed shaman behind #8). And the more I thought about how nervous I was, the more I wondered just how nervous I looked, which made me even more nervous, and ... Well, you get the idea. In the end, my orifices were left unsullied and the only thing they did was tell me I need a new birth certificate for the next time I apply for any government documentation. I should get my passport within two weeks.

Yep, it's been a very interesting week. Let's hope the next one is far less interesting. On the plus side, if I ever want to make some quick cash I now know all it will take is a pit, a case of Kool-Aid and a couple of thirsty toddlers. Let's get ready to rumble!

My entrepreneurialship knows no bounds.

I'm a loser baby, so why don't you hear me?

Last night was the 2nd annual Blog Out Loud Ottawa, or BOLO for short. It was put together by the lovely and talented Lynn of Turtlehead. She had asked me a few weeks ago if I would like to read at this year's event. I had never been to BOLO before, but it didn't scare me. I mean, I've done public speaking in front of much bigger audiences. Besides, I'm The freaking Maven. What's there to be scared of?

In my mind, I was picturing a quiet evening with a handful of pasty-skinned, blurry-eyed people looking over their laptops at each other. When my turn came, I would simply stand up, read a post, get a few golf claps and sit my sizeable ass back down. The end.

I had so many misconceptions about BOLO and Ottawa bloggers in general that I feel the need to confess what I've learned in a post. So here is the point format version in all its embarrassing glory:

1. First of all, BOLO is not some teeny tiny event that takes place around a table. This is a fairly large gathering of local bloggers. There were many tables, and all of them were full. And what was at the very back of the pub? Was that a... a stage? A fucking stage?! With a microphone and speakers and, and... Oh my wordsmith. I had to get up a stage. I don't believe I got that memo or I would have taken off from the blogosphere at a dead run, leaving several half-finished posts in my wake.

2. There are a lot of really gorgeous bloggers. I don't know what I was expecting, exactly, but it wasn't a large gathering of hotties, that's for sure. How on earth are people who sit in front of computer screens and regularly molest the social networking sites so damn beautiful? Apparently, I can no longer use my geeky hobbies as an excuse for cellulite-laden thighs. Damn you all.

3. I'm not nearly as confident as I thought I was. Once I realized I was firmly out of my element, I let the incredible Nat flutter around like the social butterfly she is and sat nervously at our table right in front of the big scary stage, sipping my Diet Coke and unceremoniously shoving fries into my mouth. I did see some familiar faces, like Pauline and XUP, but overall, I was a total BOLO loser. Thankfully, I had a couple of fabulous friends groupies come hold my hand and stop me from crawling out the back door when no one was looking. It's a good thing I brought some of my popularity with me or I might have started crying right there, at my table, into my drink.

4. There are some incredible local bloggers out there. I was completely blown away by the talent we have right here in Ottawa. As one of the last readers, I started panicking about halfway through the night, wondering how on earth I was ever going to top everything from Facebook as an abusive relationship to the great wasp nest fiasco to some truly fried rice to some epic bra flashing. And there were more, but I would be writing all day. Seriously, how on earth could I follow those up with my mediocre writing? And, more importantly, how was I going to duck the beer bottles being thrown at me with that annoying spotlight in my face? Reading alongside these funny, witty, provocative writers was probably a big mistake. I panicked. What was I thinking? I'm not a good writer! After tonight I'll be hitchhiking down the road of spammy SEO content articles at $2 a pop. This is the day I go down in flames. Better order up another Diet Coke and get my nerve up.

5. Too much Diet Coke can lead to a mild hangover-like state in the morning. Ouch.

6. I can make up the steps of a stage and over to a microphone even when my heart is about to explode out of my chest. And, more importantly, I can read something once I'm up there. And make people laugh. And surprisingly enjoy myself very, very much. And, I believe, connect with my audience. I had no idea I had that in me, and it feels good.

7. Was I the best of the night? Absolutely not. Far from from it, actually. But I did hold my own, and I won't lie: I loved every second up on that stage (after my heart started beating again). I felt like an upper class gal in a Prada store. Oh, sure, I still felt like a lost little girl in the loser corner of the schoolyard when I sat back down (ah, memories!), but that's okay. I had my three minutes of fame and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Long live The Maven's ego!

8. Twitter is way more fun when you've met a bunch of the local people you're now following. I foresee myself getting a wee bit addicted. Somebody break out the methadone.

I had an amazing time last night. What a rush! Thanks to everyone who organized the event, who came out to speak and/or to listen, and to those who came and introduced themselves to me afterwards. You made me feel all warm and fuzzy.

Or maybe that was the Diet Coke. Next time, if someone could cut me off after the first glass and steer me toward the pot of decaf, that would be great.

Mistress Chaos Likes me Too Much

Hello. My name is The Maven and I'm addicted to mayhem (hence the blog name). Or, perhaps, mistress Mayhem is addicted to me. For, try as I might to make life as smooth a ride as possible for my home of little hatchlings, we seem to be hitting a lot of potholes lately.

This year alone, we barely kept afloat with Geekster's reduced work hours and salary, my three-year-old was struck by a rare auto-immune disease, we had a dryer fire (say that three times fast - it sounds cool: dryer fire, dryer fire, dryer fire!), our middle gremlin struggled through some serious anxiety and depression, and - oh, yes - my van caught on fire.

What? I haven't told the van on fire story yet? That's because it only happened two days ago. I've been trying to write it out for the last 24 hours but my horned wonders have been too busy butting heads for me to compose more than one interrupted paragraph at a time. Still, it's story worth telling in all its chaotic glory. Come sit next to me on my pity potty and I'll tell you all about it.

Sunday night, Spawnling was running around the house wildly, launching projectiles at his older brothers and laughing evilly in the process. I don't know who helped him sneak into the food dye factory, but the kid was hyper. It was apparent he would not get to sleep without some kind of intervention. After chasing him down with a toothbrush, wrestling some pyjamas on him, and trying to read him stories in bed as he giggled and did somersaults beside me, I decided an evening drive was an absolute necessity. I do this more often than I'd like to admit. But to be honest, grabbing a coffee at the drive-thru and cruising around town for a few minutes with Coldplay to keep us company isn't such a bad deal. It's way better than being kicked by a flaying foot as I'm tucking him in.

The drive started nice enough, and Spawnling drifted off to sleep within ten minutes. I was just turning onto a highway onramp when I smelled something funky - brakes, perhaps? Meh. Must have been the dude behind me. My van just had brake work done three weeks ago. The Maven takes care of her metal baby.

I had managed to get maybe a kilometre down the road before I realized I couldn't get above 80. And that smell got worse, and I was just thinking I might want to pull over and check things out when a truck that had been behind me merges into the lane beside me and starts flagging me over, honking his horn and flashing his lights.

I pull over. He pulls in behind me, runs over and says "You need to get out of your vehicle right now. Your back wheel is on fire."

Say what, now?

I feel the shock wash over me. Sadly, when my body gets flooded with adrenaline, I get stone cold dumb. Like in a bad dream, everything feels like it's going in slow motion. Taking a sleeping Spawnling out of the van probably took seconds, but it felt like minutes. Meanwhile, all I can hear is good samaritan behind me saying "Do you have a fire extinguisher? You don't? I don't, either. Damn. Do you have water?" Not even coffee, I tell him like that's a complete irregularity. I hadn't had a chance to pick one up yet. Probably a good thing, since it would have met its untimely end being splashed on the driver's side rear wheel.

It doesn't get more tragic than that.

"Stand way, way back and call 911," says the good samaritan. "The fire is near the gas tank. You don't want to be close right now."

So I run back several feet and call 911. First, I talk to someone from the national 911 dispatch. I tell her I'm in Gatineau, but she transfers me to Ottawa emergency services, likely because my cell's area code falls on the Ottawa side. Fine. I tell them I have a car fire in Gatineau and they transfer me to - *drumroll* - Ottawa fire dispatch. Because that makes sense! Meanwhile the flames are getting bigger and the good samaritan is trying to find something in his truck to put it out with. I tell Ottawa fire what's going on and they say they'll relay the information to Gatineau. Swell. Nothing like a middleman to speed things up. In the time it took me to talk to all these people, I probably could have run across the field and adjesent Wal-Mart to the fire station behind it and just knocked on the bloody glass myself.

Watching the fire and smoke from a relatively safe distance, holding a now sobbing and terrified three-year-old, I imagined what life would be like without my van. I've never been one to get emotionally attached to material things (exclusions: our house, my grandma's antique china, and anything that has an apple on it and begins with the letter 'i'), but a very real fear hit me that the van I had lovingly handpicked all shiny and new off the lot five years ago might go up in flames at any minute.

Mistress Mayhem strikes again.

The samaritan who's name I regret never asking dug two water bottles out of the back of his truck and splashed my tire. "The fire looks like it's out," he said to me. "I really have to get going, but wait for the firetruck and do NOT drive this van. It's not safe until you've had it looked at, ok?"

No duh. Like, as if I'm getting within 50 feet of that thing until getting the mechanical "all clear." The Maven may be gorgeous, but not at the exclusion of brains. I like breathing.

He left, two more people stopped to make sure we were okay, the rest of the cars whizzed passed us at 100km/hr as Spawnling cried and I waited for a vehicular explosion. The firetruck did eventually come and confirmed that the flames were out. The biggest tragedy of this event was that I had spent most of the day makeup-less in a pool and looked like absolute ass with my sunburn, chlorine-fried hair food-stained shirt in front of three gorgeous firemen.

I've met hot firemen twice this year. The last time, about as close as I got to presentable was that I managed to throw a bra on under my shirt and sport some less-than-sexy yoga pants before leaving my smoke-filled house (yes, the kids were all outside at this point - my vanity takes a backseat to child safety, but not much else, I'm afraid). I always look like I'm stepping out of an episode of "Cops" when I meet the firemen. Just once I'd like to look a little more "meow" and a little less "woof." Just once.

I tried several times to call my husband, but he was outside and couldn't hear the phone. I managed to get him on the fifth or sixth try and he came just as the flatbed tow truck was getting there. We had it towed, we went home, we stressed over what happened and whether or not it would cost us a great deal of money to fix it. Scared little Spawnling fell asleep on the couch holding the fire chief badge hot fireman #1 gave him. I brought him into our bed and held him all night. He still remembers the last fire and is still freaked out by the earthquake we had a couple of weeks ago. He did not need this, too. Poor kiddo.

Mayhem loves me and just won't leave me alone. She runs just slightly ahead of me, upsetting the order of my life and leaving just enough mess for me to begrudgingly clean up once I get there. Thankfully, Mayhem is not an entirely cruel mistress. As far as this year goes, Spawnling is no longer sick, Geekster's full pay is being reinstated, Gutsy is in therapy and much happier, and the drier works just fine after a little cleanup.

What I've learned as the wise woman I am, is that road of life goes on despite the potholes. My van did not go up in flames and is once again drivable. As it turns out, the cause was faulty brake pads. I was ready to drop the words "lawyer" and "it's in your best interest to fix this at no expense to me" and "we could have died leaving my millions of blog readers without new posts" had we needed to, but the garage took full responsibility and had my van back to me a few hours later, free of charge. Like most of the potholes we've hit lately, it wasn't as bad as it could have been.

The good news is that, after much searching of last year's posts, I've finally found something worthy of reading at this year's Blog Out Loud Ottawa. And all it took was potentially getting engulfed in flames while driving on the highway.

I need a coffee.

Super Mom Vs. The Horrible Hobble

(Image credit: Wikipedia.org)

In the last set of comments (yes, I do read them - every single one - and they totally feed my writer's ego make my day), Deb asked if I would write a post about my recent injury. So, since I'm nice like that, allow me to flex my non-injured wordsmith muscles and tell the tale.

First, I have a confession to make: I've been working out. But if you're not my Facebook friend, you likely wouldn't know it (and if you are my Facebook friend, I apologize for spamming your live feed with my annoying workout messages). For the most part, I've been doing it all secret-like in my office or bedroom, kind of like a teenager with a case of the late night porn itch.

(Come to think of it, it's a lot like porn: skinny, scantily-clad women on the screen working up a sweat, telling you to keep going, twisting themselves into... Well, anyway. I think I've made my point.)

I've been trying not to be too rah-rah about the whole exercise thing. I tend to get overzealous and fall head over heels for something new, then lose interest, much like the guy in high school who never called you back after you got to third base.... not that teenage me would have any experience with that (the jerk). When I make a small change in life I should just do it, do it regularly, and appreciate the results. This is what I've done this time, and it's been amazing. And It feels different. I love how strong I'm getting, how much energy I have, how I tore my calf muscle while kicking myself in the ass...

Oh, yes: the injury! I had almost forgot. I was in the middle of this wonderful exercise called a "butt kick." Basically, you have to run in place while kicking so high you whack yourself in the buttocks with your heels. It's not the most attractive thing in the world, but it does get the heart pumping. I'm not quite getting foot to ass yet, but nearly. In fact, I was trying ever so hard to reach my sizeable bum with my $200 running shoes, using their uberpadding to the fullest as I pushed myself off the floor and - POP! - there went the party.

Did you know calf muscles could making a popping sound? I sure as hell didn't. In fact, it wasn't the pain that made me cease and desist, it was the fact that my leg made the same sound as a champagne bottle on New Year's Eve. The pain only came after that awful sound in the form of a rather unpleasant cramp.

I'll skip the part where I cried in agony in the shower and hastily sent off a message to a friend of mine who knows a thing or two about working out. We'll ignore my visions of having to have my leg's innards surgically reattached, or the horror running through my mind as I pictured watching helplessly from the couch as my once-tidy house goes to shit while I recover from said surgical procedure. I won't even mention my fear of gaining back the weight I've undoubtedly lost (I don't weigh myself at all these days so as to not get hung up on numbers) and watching all the muscle mass I've worked so hard for turn into flab I simply don't need more of.

But I'm not dramatic or anything. And definitely not anxious or someone who skips ahead. Me and the Dalai Lama, staying in the present like the centered beings we are.

The good news: It doesn't look to be serious. I know this because it's been getting a little better every day. As per my friend's suggestion, I immediatley applied the R.I.C.E. technique: Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation (I hope I got that right. If not, my botched memory created a whole new recovery system that worked anyway and maybe I have a future as a trainer).

Okay, I maybe lied a little bit. I only took care of myself after donning my Super Mom cape for a few hours. After my shower, I went to the grocery store, drove my sister and Gutsy somewhere, and took Spawnling to the park to play with his little friend Dalek. It was all going swimmingly - minus the part where painkillers did absolutely nothing for pain and I gasped in agony every time my calf muscle was stretched even the slightest amount - until Spawnling and his buddy decided to try to kill each other at the top of a very high play structure. They never fight -- well, hardly ever. They picked the one day I was crippled and Dalek's fairly pregnant mom was the only other adult at the park. They attacked each other ten feet off the ground, surrounded by four long slides and two openings fit for bone-crunching falls.

Fan-freaking-tastic. What on earth was I supposed to do?

After yelling at them to stop failed miserably, I rushed up to the top as quickly as I could, narrowly avoiding my now tattered Super Mom cape getting tangled up in the monkey bars. It was only once the boys were on the ground sobbing and tending their wounds with retracted claws that I felt an intense surge of major ouch. When I got home, I told the kids that mommy was done for the day. There would be no fetching of favours, no snack acquisitions. They were on their own until their dad got home from work.

Gutsy pushed the ottoman up to the armchair, put a pillow on it and carefully lifted my leg. He then grabbed an ice pack and a cold drink and handed them to me. "Are you alright, mommy? Is there anything else I can do for you?" he asked kindly, and stroked my cheek. Later, he, Intrepid and Geekster took orders, formed a sandwich assembly line, and delivered a late but very yummy dinner. The even did the dishes.

See? The family can survive without me -- for at least 12 hours! I was mostly back on my feet by the following morning, getting things done one limp at a time. I am nowhere near ready to start kicking my own ass again, but I did get a great upper body and abs workout done yesterday. Soon, I'll try walking a block or two, and then hopefully a little ways longer. By next week I hope to jog, and then I'll tentatively (and a little fearfully) resume my regular exercise routine that involves a fair bit of things that can apparently make Maven's muscle go "Pop." Yikes.

Injury sucks. However, it's reminded me just how grateful I am to be this healthy and mobile; all the more reason to keep working hard, getting stronger and healthier.

Oh, and hotter. Yes, I'm definitely getting hotter and really buff. If you know me in real life and I haven't asked you to feel my bicep yet, consider yourself lucky. I've been making everyone touch it. I expect a flood of restraining orders to start coming in soon.

Look, just fondle my arm, ok? Don't make me hobble after you.

Baby Hater

(Photo credit: Katie Trinque of Trinque Photography)

Last week, my sister and I herded the two littlest gremlins into an oversized restaurant booth. We met a friend and her new baby for breakfast. Gutsy was so excited to meet an infant. Spawning was more excited for sausages.

Baby Morgan is adorable: Smiley, cooey, beautiful. Gutsy was absolutely smitten. He took every opportunity to talk to her sweetly, hold her plump little hand, stroke the fine hair on her round little head.

Spawnling gave her nary a second look. While we were all taking turns holding her and gushing over her, he played with his cars and slurped chocolate milk.

If you couldn't already tell, Spawn isn't a big fan of babies, and everybody knows it. He finds them annoying or perhaps invasive. He takes no interest in them at this point unless they're trying to grab toys he's playing with (and then he's even been known to push them over, much to my extreme embarrassment) It's funny, because he loves animals and other kids, but not babies. Are they not interactive enough? Do they make him jealous? Who knows?

Poor Morgan. She kept looking over at Spawnling like he was some sort of god, craning her neck and cooing at everything he did. "Look, Spawn!" said mama Angie sweetly. "Morgan is so interested in what you're doing."

Spawnling sighed and didn't even look up. "Yeah, I know."

"My brother doesn't like babies very much," explained Gutsy.

"No, I don't," Spawnling agreed.

"Spawnling..." I warned, and tried to hide behind my coffee cup.

Gutsy continued. "In fact, he would probably kick a baby if he could."

I stopped mid sip. "Gutsy!"

Spawnling nodded. "Yeah, I would kick it."

"Spawnling! Don't say that!" shushed I. Meanwhile, Angie and The Sister were trying to stifle their laughter.

My youngest shrugged. "Well, I would," and went back to playing cars.

Thank you, darling. It's not every day I get to feel that level of intense mortification.

It's also reason #32 why my husband's vasectomy is a good thing, reason #181 why I'm glad I don't run a daycare anymore, and reason #568 why it's a damn good thing that boy is so cute.

(Thankfully, he did come around and end up taking a bit of an interest in little Morgan. No babies were kicked in the telling of this tale, and I am breathing a sigh of relief that we have no infants in our future. Hopefully, by the time one of his older brothers blesses us with a grandchild, Spawnling will be well beyond the baby punting stage. We hope.)