Mommy Moments and Letters to Loki

Today I had one of those Mommy!Moments.

Things have been utterly wretchedly crazy at work the past few weeks and I admit I've been kinda snarky on the home front. I always swore I'd never let work get in the way of me enjoying time with my Littles, but at the end of the day, I admit that their daycare teachers see them more than I do. It breaks my heart, but that's the way it is, and unless I win the lottery [which would mean I'd have to play the lottery], they have to stay in daycare. I know they love their teachers, but I always worry I'm missing out on key moments in their lives.

At any rate, today I arrived late to pick up Goose [which by proxy meant I was going to be late to pick up Roux as well] so I came flying into the school, when the director asked to speak with me. Heart sinking, I thought I was up for another lecture about a) My lateness, b) Goose acting out, or c) Both.

My Goose is a special boy, and I try to avoid labels when talking about him or writing about him, because I want people to get to know him, for him, and not pity him because of some label concocted by another [myself included]. But I digress...

When we got into her office she pulled out what I recognised as Goose's big notepad; he struggles a lot with printing so he likes to practise on this, where he can write as big as he likes. I immediately thought I was in for a repeat of last year's notepad incident which involved older boys and four letter words, but instead she opened it and handed it to me.

Here is what it was:

 In Case you don't speak Goose I'll translate:

Dear My Mum's Favorite Actor Loki,
Please come to her birthday party.
She will be very happy and buy me toys. And make you cake. Love, Goose.
*Please note the lovely illustrations where Loki is twice the size of Thor*

Turns out she was concerned that I had let him watch Thor and The Avengers; I haven't, but he doesn't live under a rock...and I admit I buy early reader Avengers books to try to tempt his reading. I assured her that I would not be inviting any Frost Giants to my birthday in May, tempting though it may be.

I may be the mother of one of the sweetest Gooses in the history of Geese. My beautiful boy.

Beaver Unplugged

Okay, so tonight I had my first true troll experience on Twitter. Now, I've been involved in online fangirling for nearly fourteen years now [yes, I'm THAT old ;)]...ever since Buffy came along, so I'm no stranger to trolls. When I was younger it always seemed like some extra excitement to shake up our message boards.

But now that I'm older, and not necessarily more mature, I found the experience rather upsetting. Not in a you-hurt-my-feelings kinda way...just sort of, really, REALLY? Did you really just send me not one, but FOUR DMs?

Tiny bit 'o personal information; I work in a high security environment...nothing terribly interesting, but still security is involved. I'm also the Social Media and Communications Champion so I'm in charge of the company's Twitter etc. among other things. What this means is, as an individual, I'm not supposed to be on Facebook, Twitter...or Blogger [oops].

After much back and forth with the company, I got permission to use Facebook, provided I didn't post or join inappropriate things/groups.  When I wanted to join the Hiddlestoners group I had to draft a memo...yes, an actually memo, outlining why I wanted to join the group. Which, I'm positive my VP didn't actually read, because the first response came back, 'Rejected. Relates to Drug/Alcohol'.

Ah, bureaucracy at its finest! 

Now, I make no secret of the fact that I joined Twitter [without my company's permission] largely because I found the Hiddlestoners  group to be such a glorious bunch of people. They were the first people I spoke with on Twitter, and everything has always been great. I love participating in my own little way, even though I don't really have much to say.

I'm very aware my handle isn't pleasing to some, but it's close to my heart as it was a nickname given to me by a coworker who died two years ago...

I can honestly say in all my years, through various fandoms, I have never come across a more diverse, creative, giving group of people than them. I owe then alot. I was going through a really rough patch in my life, and they made me smile every day...even if I was just lurking in the corner :)

Wow. This is getting long.

At any rate, tonight, who should happen to tweet just as I logged in? Dear Mr Hiddleston.  Now, this never happens...I can't post from work and I don't have a phone, so I have to make due with reading about it after the fact. But tonight I was determined to post! In my eagerness {I am a beaver afterall} my tweet made absolutely no grammatical sense...I was so embarrassed, but my pride kept me from deleting it.
I moved on, made dinner for the kids, started a load of laundry...then the first DM arrived. It detailed my insulting behaviour and advised me to apologise immediately. Er, okay. But then the second arrived, more insulting, more demanding...plus two more which I wouldn't have wanted my kids to read.

I didn't realise until that moment how ferociously possessive some fans are. I didn't realise the sheer nastiness people were capable of venting to complete strangers. I won't name the person in question, but I've heard of her before.  I've never had to block a fellow fan, and the Mom in me hated doing it.

A great big thank you to everyone who wrote me afterwards; I never really thought anybody knew I was there. Thank you. It means alot.

Tuesday Musings, or how Queen Saved my Evening

Ever have one of those moments when stop and think, 'Wow, is it still only Tuesday?'

It's March break so both Goose and Roux are home with the Wog during the day and me at night...I still only get to spend less than two hours with them before bed, but good god do they make up for lack of time.

Chaos. Insane Screaming. More Chaos.

Tonight trivets were smashing, then there was screaming, followed immediately with biting, then thanks to an absolutely lovely person on twitter's suggestion of music, there was dancing and singing.
I'm continuously amazed by how little people respond to music; both of mine absolutely adore Queen, much to my pleasure ...we'll ignore Roux' unfortunate interest in Rihanna.

I enjoyed watching both kids sing along with the words they knew [Roux] and gladly make up the words they were missing [Goose]. I've loved Queen so much over the years, it made me happy, that even for a short time I could share it with my kids.

Can't Kids just stay Kids?

As I was driving Goose home from school today he announced with great gusto,

'Mummy, today we had a drill!'

'Oh, my kind of drill?'

I responded, my mind more on the snowy road than the actual conversation.

'You know, a drill in case somebody comes to the school to take us or kill us. We had to face the cubbies and be very quiet; it was fun.'

What.The.Hell.

I wanted to scream, I wanted to laugh, I wanted to cry.

'Nobody's is going to come and take or kill you, Goose'

I answered quietly. Firmly.

'But Mum, somebody did, they came to a school and-'

I didn't let him finish. I couldn't. I don't think anyone will ever forget those poor babies, but I won't bring them up here.

My Goose is six years old, he has brown hair, blue eyes and loves to run. He's always telling me I am the most beautiful Mummy in the world. He's six years old. Six years old.

The world has a way of encroaching  on our lives without us realizing it; I knew I couldn't protect him from the world forever, I just thought I had more time.

The soul does not surrender to despair without having exhausted all illusions

"L'âme ne se rend pas au désespoir sans avoir épuisé toutes les illusions." ~Victor Hugo

"The soul does not surrender to despair without having exhausted all illusions."

I haven't read 'Les Miserables' since grade nine, but over the past two weeks found myself pulling out my tattered old copy and revisiting it. I was an angry young person and it suited my mood at the time; nobody made me read it, and I learnt to read in French before English so it only made sense that I would read it in its original form [that, and I was a terrifically pretentious Goth girl].

Something about Tom Hiddleston's visit to Guinea really touched a nerve, as I'm sure it did with alot of people following his blog posts. I've spent the better part of two years, though only five months on this blog, complaining and wailing to anyone who would listen how hard my life had become. I did it over, and over again, like some kind of bad country song...first we lost the job, than the car, than the house...

But I never really stopped to think about anything other than what was happening in my little corner of the world; I never realised how selfish I was being. Now, this isn't about to turn into a 'He changed my world' type post, but something has changed and I'm not sure if I can quite put my finger on it. I have come to the realisation that I'm not putting enough good into the world; I want to give more.  I've spent the better part of ten years working at the Big Green making mounds of money for one man. My unit alone pulled in nearly half a billion dollars last year. Half a Billion Dollars...for one man. When I think of all the things that money could be doing I feel ashamed. I want my time and energy to matter, to mean something. Something other than a bottom line in somebody's ledger.

So I'm going to dig deep and see if I can make some changes. So I'll end with the words of another great man: " If you want to make the world a better place, take a look at yourself and then make that change". ~Michael Jackson

Hats off Hiddleston Fans

I can’t not say it, even if I come off sounding terribly Mom-ish. I’m so very, very proud of the Tom Hiddleston fandom right now. Tom’s upcoming work with UNICEF is just plain glorious, and the fan response trumps it a million times over.

Now, I’ve been involved with various fandoms for an awfully long time, but this is the first time I’ve seen fans actually working together to create, share and give to others without a thought for their own personal gain. A fandom where we’re not all trying to trample each other to be first or prove who the ‘better’ fan is.
I love, love, love that I can stand up a little straighter when a coworker says ‘What good has that actor you like so much actually done?’

Hats off to Tom and his Fans

Insert Year End Summary Here

This is supposed to be where my year end summary would go, and if I'd had a remarkable enough year to warrant such a thing I would gladly post it. This year was, in many ways an exercise in futility, in lows and lower lows [yes, I'm being melodramatic] in loss and betrayal...looks like it has all the makings of a romance novel or after school special.

To be fair good things did happen this year: the Wog publishing his book, Goose starting grade one and Roo finishing her potty training [okay, that one was for me] and Hiddleston did give us the brilliant Henry IV and V this summer [also for me].

But we did have to [try] sell our house, lose all our savings and scale back so much that we couldn't function without help from our families, and the Wog did lose out on three truly brilliant jobs that would have turned everything around. Topping the year off with a big ol' blah, we still haven't heard from the consolidation folks so it seems we're just where we started.

The holidays have been lack luster at best, with Goose spending Christmas Eve hunched over the toilet and Roo hacking like a two pack a day smoker...good times all around.

I'm trying to stay positive as we move into the new year; I keep thinking it has to get better because it can't get any worse. People say that to us a lot; 'It will get better'...is that what people say when they don't know what else to say?  Do they really mean, 'I'm glad it's you and not us'? Not that I blame them, some days I wouldn't want to be us either.

Happy New Year to anyone who took the time to read this and any of my other [never-ending] rants. All the best to you and yours this holiday season.