I'm amazed my parents ever took us to K-days more than once

So... brain is completely melted with yet another heat wave. Last week was pretty uneventful. Camp was easy to get to, grandmother picked C up all week after camp so I just had the morning ride.

Only real entertainment, if you can call it such, is the dog getting sick.... all over the living room... and horribly, his digested kibble is almost the same color as the carpet. With his last health scare M called me home from work to clean up/watch the dog so he could go to his doc's appt. Doggy's fine, by the next day he was right back to normal. My mom figures perhaps something from the last digestive upset moved and perhaps he's now passed it.

C's camp last week was a "science" camp so he made all sorts of strange goop, and got to go to the Space Science Center (Telus center or whatever now) for a day. He seemed to like it mostly, except for the part where they had to "sit and watch the ceiling for an hour and a half while waiting for the bus" in the astronomy theater.

The house is freaking hot. Have I mentioned that? Thank goodness we have a basement to hide in now, but even that gets sticky and hot after awhile.

We had a wonderful thunderstorm at about 6am this morning. And perfectly timed, the rain and everything stopped before I had to leave to trek across the city to this weeks camp. Next time I'm checking addresses more closely, this one is in bloody Lessard! Now for those who know us, we live in the NORTH! Lessard is on the SOUTH and west too. But strangely enough it took the same amount of time to get there as it did to get downtown, go figure. This week tho, with it not being downtown, we're on our own to pick the kid up. Which means today I get to drive to get him as M is the most senior person at work tonight to wrap stuff up. Should be fun, driving the whitemud twice in 1 day... wow more than I usually do it in a summer!

Oh and yes, as to the title. We took C and a friend P and his son S with us to K-days. I remember it being much more fun as a kid I guess. I hadn't gone in a few years, and now I remember why. It's gotten rather boring. Even the "market" was small and not near as much fun. We did watch the bellydancers who are preforming this year, that was worthwhile, except for the "I'm boreds" echoing from the boys after about 20 mins. I think they enjoyed themselves for the most part. Both panned for gold, C was shown how by one of the people there and so had one nugget found for him, then he found his own, and very nicely shared with S who got fed up and dumped his pan. M and I looked at hottubs, still playing with the idea of putting one in, now we have a bit more info of what we'd need to do first even tho the company's tubs were rather expensive.

Other than that, I'm getting a tan *cry* I can't wait for winter, or at least the fall!

Over the hump and down the...

So, it's Thursday. I finally get the route to camp mapped out in my brain only to have 1 more day to drive it. Then a new one on Monday. Ah well. At least I get to do a lot of riding.

M had a talk with C, and things have been steadily improving with his morning rituals. Today the only thing he needed "reminding" was to brush his teeth. Wow the kid has wicked breath if he doesn't. Hate to see it when he hits puberty. He's also having major troubles locking the door. He needs to be able to do it for school at the end of august since we'll be leaving before him in the morning. Any suggestions? Should we replace the lock with a keypad? Use the bottom pushlock only? (That's what we did in the old house). Any other ideas?

Also to my ladies, it's YaYa time! Let's find a time. :)

Was the baby sister's b-day yesterday, hard to believe she's 27. She bought herself a new car which is great. Was also nice to see my dad get out to a restaurant, I don't think he's been out too much since he got sick. But good reports from the orthopedic doc on his shoulder replacement and the correctional cardiac procedure will be done next month hopefully.

At work we graduated another PhD from the lab. We have 1 grad student left, it's getting small. And in september it's going to get quiet. Very quiet. Part of me is curious as to what's going to happen around here, and part of me wonders if I should be looking to move on. I don't really want to rock the boat at the moment since I've got it really good here, but how long do you hold onto the boat?

Well, just some morning thoughts...

Tomorrow

Well this morning was an improvement over yesterday, although not by much. C didn't set his alarm, so he slept in and we had to haul him out of bet at 7am. Then while getting dressed he goes "I have no pants", I lost it at that point because his father and I had just spent time putting all his pants away on the weekend, and he has 3 bloody drawers of them! So I just told him to keep looking, and lo' he found some.

He did remember his lunch and his water bottle. The lunch I think he only remembered because M looked in the fridge while he was in the kitchen.

On a good note, one of the camp leaders told us that C was really well behaved, polite, and even got a shy kid to participate yesterday. So I hope that camp at least goes well.

I'm not enjoying having to drive cross-city for the damn camp, but if he enjoys it, it's worth it.

Now tonight I have a BBQ at the boss's house to celebrate a PhD defense... gonna be a long night.

Is it bad?

To feel relief at going back to work after my holidays?

Sad to say it, but I'm happy to be back. Going headfirst this past week into step-mom'dom hasn't been a picnic. Not only am I still under all the stress of moving, I have this kid who can't seem to do anything without my express instruction. He's a great kid, but it's gonna drive me nuts if he can't find his own mind soon.

I know it takes time to get settled, thanks for the words of support C! It just feels like I'm trying to do too much all at once, and getting nothing done. I don't feel like I accomplished anything on my holidays except to get more stressed out. I still feel like just sitting and crying at the hopelessness of it all. I know I'm probably having a downswing, since as much as I like change, my body hates it.

It's all I can do to get myself organized, and then to have someone who can't do anything on his own really is hard on me. Here's how this morning went...

C turned off his alarm, so therefor didn't get up when he was supposed to. I'm getting tired of waking everyone up so I stayed in bed until 7. At 7, I rolled out of bed, as did M. C was just getting dressed, I told him to hustle and go eat. I went to get ready. M had to run out the door to get to work.

I finished getting ready, asked C if he ate anything "yeah, a banana". Well at least it's something. Did he feed the dog? No... so tell him to go feed the dog. Tell him to get his backpack. Ask him if he has his waterbottle? No... go get your waterbottle.

I start loading my bike up and tell him to get his jacket. "Where's my jacket?" "If you were a jacket where would you be?" So I finish loading up my bike, find his riding gloves etc. Go back into the house, he's wandering around in his helmet and jacket, no shoes. I go to find my jacket. He's tossed/knocked it on the floor while trying to get his down. I get my jacket on, tell him to get his shoes on. Let the dog in. Fill the waterbottle that's still in the dishwasher (which was full of rotting jujubes by the way).

Grab all my things, get him out the door, lock the door. Ask him where his waterbottle is, as he's come out the door empty handed. Back in he goes to get his water bottle. Out he comes. Send him back to lock the door. He gets on my bike without warning, almost toppling us. Gets in trouble for that. Then I realize he doesn't have his gloves on. Off the bike to get his gloves.

Finally we get moving. 10 mins into the ride I realize that I'm probably going the really long way to get to this damn summer camp that's downtown. Oh well. 5 mins later I realize that I should bet money on the fact that C hasn't put his lunch in his bag either. And top it off, the kid has ants in his pants, which is real bad when on the back of a motorcycle.

I pull over into a Macs store and ask him where his lunch is. He hangs his head. Shit. This is not what I need today. So in we go to the Macs to buy him a sandwich. And.... they don't have any.

So back we get on the bike, and head towards this school, I'm thinking there's got to be some other Macs/7-11 on the way. Finally I spot another one. We pop in there, and 9 bucks later he has food for lunch.

Finally I get to the area where this school is supposed to be... I see churches, churches and senior centers... round and round the block and I finally find the school. It's already later than I wanted to get there (stupid me, thought I could get there for 8). We go in and end up in the daycare section of the school... guh, finally with a bunch of directions we find the gymnasium where they're having the camp and I can finally drop C off. I give them the new phone number, tell them his grandmother is picking him up and finally get on my way to work.

By now I am totally soaked with sweat not only with heat, but just stress in general. I finally get into the lab at 8:45am. Not happy. But lovely G has bought me a Timmy's coffee! And my sweet hubby is very supportive when I whine at him about the morning.

I understand this whole step-mom thing is going to have a lot of growing pains, but I just don't know what to do. I mean, I know I'm not doing it by myself, but recently I feel like it's been all me and I'm beginning to resent it. Must speak to M to see if we can come up with something else.

I only hope tomorrow goes better.

FINALLY!

Some rain! And it's a bit cooler, and I can almost walk around the new house.

I don't like living in chaos, I find it quite upsetting for some reason. I'm tired of the mess, and I know it just takes time to get organized, but it doesn't stop me from wanting to just sit and cry in the middle of the afternoon. At least today is cooler, and I feel like I can actually do some organizing.

We have our bedroom mostly set up, slight downside to this place, is the master bedroom doesn't have near enough closet space for 2 people. So we've got 2 chests of drawers and a dresser full of clothes. That's going to take some getting used to for me, M used to live like that all the time, he never hung stuff up in a closet.

C's room is a disaster zone, that kid has so many clothes, he doesn't need anything new except maybe underwear until he grows out of a size 12. Considering he's wearing a 7 or so at the moment, I think it'll be awhile. He has more clothing than me and M put together. So we're still trying to juggle how to put all his clothes away. I think I'm going to take my parents' methods with the bedroom... it's his place, and he has to deal with it, so we will just close the door if it's messy. He's not allowed to do that anywhere else in the house, if he makes a mess playing in the rumpus room he has to clean it up.

We even lucked into some free living room furniture from my aunt who is moving this week as well. A couch and chair which we go pick up tonight. I also want to take a look at her dining room set which she might part with for some cash... all depends on how much cash she wants as to whether we decide to take it. There's always the bargain finder.

So maybe the stress level is coming down, maybe not. It's hard to say. I've been living on a sore stomach for so long I'm getting used to it.

M's back at work this week, it's taking some getting used to just being me and C. I value independance, and he's never had to be. But M and I decided, he's had enough babying in his 9 years, it's time he learned to microwave food, tie his own shoes, make his own lunch, etc. It feels harsh to me, but I think it's just because he's been so coddled. His grandfather's favorite word for how C was raised. Can't knock his grandmother, that's what they do ;) It's just they're not normally raising a child 24/7.

So that's where we stand for now. I'm back to work next week, and part of me will be relieved to get back, at least to get away from the mess here for awhile. Even though it's going to make the evenings rougher.

Moved

Moved, but far from settled. Many many thank you's to all who helped!