Gifts

Today is my birthday and with birthdays comes gifts.  Gifts are wonderful.  We are usually never in a position to give gifts, so we just write each other love notes and go on a date.  This year, Joe is taking me to Banff for three days and two nights and I am over the moon excited to go and spend time with him and hope that we can walk after a whole day of snowboarding (I haven't gone since before having babies!  Ack!).

But this is not what I want to talk about.  Yesterday was a pretty rough day.  I don't want to get into it.  It was frustrating.  Blah.  And then I had a meeting with Jackson's teacher that day after school.  I went in there not really knowing what to expect.  She just told me that she wanted to talk to me about a program he might be interested in.  There sat his teacher, Jodi O'Brien, and a specialist.  "Maren, we think that Jackson might be gifted."  Hmmmm....  My heart did about a zillion leaps of pride.  I don't think it's a secret that Jackson is super bright and more responsible than most thirty year olds out there.  But to be gifted means that you have to test in the 98th percentile.  He didn't want to get my hopes up, but the chances are not that high that he would be in the "gifted" category.  He may be in the 90th percentile.  Or 80th.  Either way, Jackson is somewhere high on that spectrum which is a really neat thing to hear.  The reason they want to test him is to make sure that he is feeling challenged at school.  Often times when he is home he asks Joe to show him more difficult Math questions than what he is learning at school.  He is constantly taking a book with him wherever he goes (even to the beach in the Summer!) and prefers to read "fact" books.  Even from a young age!  I remember in Kindergarten he called them "information books."  For Christmas, instead of toys, he asked for fact books.  In piano his teacher told me that Jackson was the only student out of 40 kids who could transpose a song he learned to a different key.  And he figured it out on his own.  He is also just really responsible and eager to help.  He is very observant and always asking if I need a hand with anything or he can babysit more or change Jane's diaper.  This is not a regular ten year old.  I think that is clear.  Whether or not he is gifted doesn't change how proud I already am of him.  I think it's just neat that he is actually being asked to be tested and that someone thinks my son could be considered "gifted."

What a great early birthday present.

Friends Friends for Every Meal!

 Look at this fine group of ladies.  And we are even missing a few (Alysha, Kristi and Amelia).  It's been about six or seven months since we have gotten together like this and I have missed them so much.  We all met in the middle at Tarilyn's house and had a blast visiting and playing games till 3am.  Barb, as our true leader, lead us in a name game where we write down a zillion names and then each person goes around the circle and picks out a name and tries to make you guess as many names as possible in a minute without saying the name or "rhymes with", etc.  That's round one.  Round two is acting it out, and then round three is just saying one trigger word.  It got funnier as the night went on.  But maybe because it was super late and everything is always a little more funny when you are tired!  Cassie hated it!  Haha!  We had plenty of treats and plenty to talk about till the wee hours of the morning.  Jenny slept beside me and told us a good night tale, which was hilarious and creepy.  We also talked about if we got murdered, who would our murderer be?  And in true fashion Jordana couldn't come up with one person---because she's an angel and could never ever offend anyone enough!  Haha!  We all crashed hard and everyone was QUIET!  I usually need to adjust at least five times before I get comfortable enough to sleep and each time I moved I felt like I was going to wake everyone up!!  I slept until 10am.  Best sleep I've had in a long time.

The next morning we went for brunch at Glenn's.  Their buffet was awesome.  I tried eggs Benedict for the first time and it was delicious!  Sure did get seconds.  And of course we did a 7-11 run.  I am usually the "selfish" one of the group, ...I think that has come with being pregnant so many times so I feel entitled.  Like, "yes, I will be the first to eat.  Yes, I will take the comfiest bed, etc"  Well, I was trying to be nice at 7-11 and let everyone get their slurpees first and there was no Coke slurpee left for me, so I had to have Pepsi.  And then I forgot to use my Slurpee app for my slurpee to earn points, so I used it on Barb's and it gave her my free slurpee!  Haha!  We all had a good laugh at my "good luck."

We went to Winners afterwards and decided it would be fun to pick out terrible outfits for each other.  We chose partners by closing our eyes and putting our hands in the middle and grabbing whoever was there.  Haha!  It totally did not work the first or second time around.  Three different people had picked Jenny.  Probably had something to do with her putting both hands in.  Haha!  This is our reenactment.

 We were hideous and did a fashion runway walk.  Haha!  This moment right here makes me feel truly lucky that I have Sarah as my sister.  She is always making me laugh, and her walk was no exception.  She and Jenny chose outfits for each other and they were the best ones, hands down.

I so look forward to these times together as friends and it's never long enough.  It's interesting because when we get together, there is no ONE thing that we ALL have in common.  We are all unique, diverse women with varying backgrounds and beliefs.  We all have different senses of humour and we are all sorts of varying ages.  Even through our faults or differing opinions, we still love each other.  These women are my safety net.  I have their back, and I can certainly trust them to have mine.

I'm Alone But I Ain't Lonely

You know that line in Newsies "I'm alone but I ain't lonely?"  Well.  I feel the opposite.  And I'm not sure why?  I am surrounded by people all the time.  I mean, usually little people, called my children.  But last night I had a group of friends who threw me an early birthday party karaoke night, and earlier that morning I saw Tanis (Taylor) and helped her with some choreography for her students that are in festival and it was fun to do that together.  The night before that I had a rehearsal with Tanis and Kelly Moore (whom I call my British Kelly), and we rehearsed for ten minutes and then talked for two hours.  Last weekend, Sarah and I drove up to Red Deer to meet up with our Edmonton friends for a sleepover extravaganza at Tarilyn's.  The weekend before that I had my Workshop where I was surrounded by sophisticated, funny and talented people to work on "Cursed By a Woman" with me.

So what the heck?

I think I've figured it out.  Maybe.  I think when I hear the words, "Honey, I am leaving town tomorrow," I want to ball up and die.  When Joe's here, I don't appreciate him and I certainly don't give him the best version of me.  When he leaves, I fall apart.  I mean.  I try to be strong, because I have to be two people for my kids, but it can be pretty exhausting when you have to do that three days out of the week.  Every week.  And that doesn't include Sunday where I usually don't see him till an hour or two before dinner.  Sometimes it's honestly fine.  But sometimes I fall apart.  And I think I've been so spoiled the last few weeks that when Joe said those words last night, it just put me in a funk.  I try to associate those words with "let's be productive while Joe is out of town Maren!"  I work on my scripts.  I work on my piano sight reading.  I write and record music.  It's "my" time.  But sometimes I just want to cuddle up with my man and not have any responsibilities and then he orders us yummy food and brings me a slurpee and makes life wonderful and I feel secure again because my protector is back and all is right is the world.  Until we can't find anything good to watch on Netflix.

Please understand, I know I have it good.  Life is great!  It really is.  But sometimes, I miss Joe.

I think I will watch Pride and Prejudice tonight.  I considered Little Women but I don't feel like crying.

Student Lead

Last week, the kids had student-lead conferences at school where they get to be "in charge" of showing me all the cool things they are doing in school.  And as is becomming the story of my life, Joe was out of town.  Therefore, I got to pack up all the kids and off we went on what I thought was going to be a one hour adventure.  I only brought enough snacks for one hour!  We were there for two and a half hours!  And as much as I enjoyed spending that one-on-one time with the kids, there were some pretty painful moments with Jane and Zoe and them not wanting to be there.  Haha!  It was mostly okay, but towards the end, everyone was spent, which was hard because I wanted to give each child their due attention!  

Jackson went first, and he didn't even get through half of the stuff he wanted to show me.  We were in his classroom for 40 minutes!  They had quite the list.  I am super proud of Jackson and how much he loves school and learning.  His teacher asked him to be apart of the Tech Club instead of choir.  This makes me a little sad because I think he's talented in both music and brains and I wish he didn't have to choose.  But alas, his heart is with computers.  And he loves it.  His favourite thing to show me was their class robot thing.  They gave it a name and you can program codes into it to make it go exactly where you want.  Jackson-heaven right there.  Here he is with his teacher, Mrs Jodi O'Brien.  Why does he make that face?!!   Makes me crazy.

Noah really impressed me with his student-led conference.  He was so excited to show me his classroom and what they've been working on, and we even did a little school work together.  Side note, he won a bag of jelly beans for getting his entire science assignment that we did together right!  Yay!  And he shared with me.  I loved seeing Noah light up.  He is eager and works hard.  Jane especially loved his massive classroom because it meant she could get into a lot more stuff!  My favourite part was an English assignment where he wrote about me and Joe and what he loves about us.  It made me cry, which made him embarrassed.  Haha!  Here he is with his teacher Mrs Sandra Alwood.  He is lucky to have her.  She is wonderful and sees all the good and potential in him.  Noah has really excelled in her class.

Ellie's teacher, Mrs Dorrie Peverett reminds me of "Miss Honey" from the movie "Matilda."  She is caring and sweet and is meant to be around small children all day.  I really wanted to give Ellie the attention she deserved in her student-lead conference particularly because she was last, so I put Noah in charge of the ever-moving Jane, and Jackson in charge of Zoe who had to go to the bathroom.  He told me later he had to go into the girls bathroom to help her wipe her bum and he was utterly embarrassed.  Haha!  Oh poor boy.  He said he was just glad no one saw him coming out of the girl's bathroom!  The life of a ten year old boy with little sisters.  Anywho.  Ellie and I had a fun time where she taught me a numbers game, and we looked through all her artwork and journaling and other school work.  Her teacher says she is very talented, especially at writing and drawing.  Well done Ellie!  I am so proud of you!

 What the Burnhams look like ruling the halls!  Haha!  At this point it was 6:45pm (we were there since 4:15pm!), and I was wiped.  So when Jackson came up with the brilliant plan to go to McDonald's, I jumped on that.  When we got home, Ellie started to complain that she was sick and didn't want to go to school the next day.  Here's the thing.  Ellie is always saying she is sick!  Always.  Every day.  Sometimes she truly is sick, but most of the time she is crying wolf.  I have tried to explain to her what the means and how it is hard to trust her, but it hasn't really sunk in yet.  Here are here feelings on that.

This is her first outburst like this.  She is usually writing love notes and sweet pictures, so this was a bit of a shock---also a little funny that she is dressed like a ninja kicking Noah's face and that her exclamation marks have angry faces.  Haha!  All very creative!  And great spelling!  But yeah.  It made me a little sad.  She wrote angry sticky notes all over the house too (except on Jane's door it said, "I love you Jane."  She IS an innocent party after all).  I think this means she is seven.  Both of the boys went through these angry, gloomy phases the moment they turned seven.  Thankfully she is not like this all the time, but often after school I will ask her what her best and worst is, and she will focus on only the negative.  I tried not to think too much of it until just last week her teacher wrote me an email about Ellie.  She said that Ellie tells her almost every day that she is sick.  Often she just tries to distract her and most of the time she is fine, but every once in a while she lets her go to the office and lay down.  She also just recently started doing this in gym.  They just started a new sport, basketball, and Ellie's friends laughed at her when she couldn't dribble as well as they could.  This breaks my heart a little and I am worried that she is already struggling with self-esteem issues at such a young again.  Sometimes she talks about how her friends don't want to play with her at school.  But then Mrs Peverett tells me that she often has friends playing with her, but there are one or two times where her friends choose to play something else and she only focusses on those one or two times, rather than how they played with her the rest of the day.  It's really hard to know if or when she is actually telling the truth about being sick, and if she is telling her teacher that she is sick every day at school, is she just trying to get out of something?  Mrs Peverett mentioned this little weekly club that they started with a small group of girls and a liaison worker who helps them with their self-esteem issues.  They play games and she is hands on.  I think this will be great for Ellie and I really hope I can get some answers.  I also took her in to see the doctor (she has strep for the second time this month---and if she didn't lie so much, I might have taken her in sooner!!), and I have also set up an appointment for a full physical.  I am hoping with these two things combined that we can get some answers.

Or she might just be seven.

My Baby is One

                       

Jane!  I am blown away by how fast this year came and went.  If only my pregnancy with you felt this fast!  I love love love you and can't get enough of you.  I think the whole family feels this way about you.  For your birthday, we had a little celebration in the afternoon between all the craziness in my life (Stake Musical Theatre rehearsals and my "Cursed By a Woman" workshop/table read).  Dad picked up everyone's favourite for lunch.  Costco greasiness, complete with chocolate milk (your first time trying it.  You couldn't get enough).  Followed by cherry cheesecake that Jackson helped Dad make.          

You could have probably stood to have a nap after all that (we all could have), but we decided to be fun and spontaneous and took you all skating instead.  The perfect choice for a perfect day!  Skating for you means, sitting in your stroller and getting pushed around the ice.  I thought maybe you would fall asleep, and I think you may have been close a couple times, but this was your first time skating outside, and it was way too interesting for any of that!

We never did get to really cruise around the ice because we had to keep to Zoe's pace, but we still had a fun time.  At the beach house there are a few hockey rinks and a large track around the lake (and some ice fishing).  The boys played hockey with Dad while I took you girls around the track.  Ellie skated ahead of us and doubled what we did.  She is really getting good and I even found her racing a boy a couple times!  Haha!  She is fearless on the ice!  Zoe fell and cried many times, but I am proud that she kept getting back up and going for it again and again.  You and I, on the other hand, got to do a whole lot of gazing.

Jane, you are an integral part of our family.  As the baby, you are the glue and you create so much joy in our home.  This past week was a big one for you.  Not only did you turn one, but you also learned how to go up and down the stairs on your own (it's the DOWN part that was especially exciting) and you learned how to stand up on your own.  At first you got tricked into it by holding a toy, but now you have figured out how to stand UP on your own!  It is only a matter of time before you start taking steps and get to be too fast for me!  Who am I kidding?  You already are.  Your new favourite thing is getting into the cupboards or getting into my purse and unloading absolutely everything in there.  That's how I keep you busy in Relief Society!  And when you're done with my purse, you unload my wallet of all it's cards.  Some of my favourite moments with you is when I check on you at night and make sure your heater is at the right temperature right before I go to bed and I "accidentally" wake you up and we snuggle in the rocking chair with a blanket.  I know all the "Baby-Wise" book fanatics would scorn me for this choice, but boy.  When you know it's your last, you want to hold that baby for as long as she will let you.  I don't do this every night, but I certainly don't hesitate when it happens.  You love when I sing you "Round and Round the Garden" and will even point to my hand or your own hand to show me you want that song.  You also love "This Little Piggie Went to Market" on your toes.  I love it too, because your toes are so tiny and sensitive.  It's adorable!  Though you are wiggly, and busy and lots of physical work right now, you are sweet and adorable and well loved in our home.  Happy Birthday Jane.  I love you!

Cursed By the Winter

Oh my heck.  This month has been crazy.  Usually January and February are the worst, right?  Because of the Christmas let-down and the cold and nothing really exciting to look forward to, I often try to plan fun or exciting things during Jan-March so I will be so busy that the worst time of year will fly by and before I know it, it will be Spring and I can wear sandals again.  Well, I may have overdone it this year.  I mean.  Nothing beats last year's Newsies and having a baby.  BUT.  I am the Stake Cultural Arts Director and decided it would be fun to do a Musical Theatre Night, and make it REALLY good and organized this year.  Well, that's all fun and good, and by itself I think this sort of thing is really fun to organize (we started rehearsals last week and I am directing two really big group numbers on top of organizing the program.  Ack!).  Problem is, I also planned my "Cursed By a Woman" workshop for this weekend.  It starts tonight actually and I'm a little anxious about how it's all going to go.  I met with a dramaturg (Caroline Russell-King) earlier this month to go over my script, and then made even more edits and changes like a mad-woman.  In fact, the kids' entire second week of Christmas vacation time was me bent over my computer and keyboard.  We had a super fun first week, so I didn't feel too bad.  I told them flat out, "Mommy doesn't exist for a whole week!  I do not answer to Mommy."  But.  When Mommy doesn't exist (and Daddy is out of town), things like this tend to happen.....

So eventually, Mommy had to return.  Kind of.  I still had lots of editing and writing and organizing to do.  I just also had to organize my time better.  Be present for the kids, do dishes, maybe get to the laundry, ....work during nap time and school time and after bed time.  I love working this hard.  I really do.  I find working under pressure really makes me sit down and do it.  What I DON'T love are the annoying things that get in the way of working.  Like getting sick.  I have been sick literally all month long.  Did I have time to go to the doctor?  Why would I do that?  Just drink water and rest, right?  Well, after a month of feeling achy and sore and battling a sore throat, Joe made me get checked for strep.  Ellie had it a few weeks ago, so it was possible.  But after getting a strep test and mono test done, which were both negative, they said it was likely two viruses back to back and just to wait it out.  Well.  That's been fun.  And what a royal waste of time leaving the house only to sit in the doctor's waiting room for that conclusion.  This all happened the night before I had a concert.  I was asked to sing a couple songs and there would be other various local artists.  Cool.  I could add that to my life.  Only two songs right?  A night out?  Well, the week before the concert, I was asked to ALSO prepare a cover.  I was told, people like covers.  Hmmmm.  I have not whipped out a cover song in probably years.  So, I actually had to practice!!!  This took up time that I did not have, BUT, it was the kind of time that was fun.  Like, would you rather sweep or call people to commit to a Stake number.... or practice your song again?  Haha!  I asked Joe what he thought I should do, and he suggested "Wild Horses" by the Rolling Stones.  I used to play this a lot at home after my friend Jocelyn Ogrins passed away three years ago from cancer.  It is a sad song and it makes me cry, but a great love song.  I often think of her and husband when I sing it.  I wanted to dedicate it to them, but even the very thought made me cry, so I dedicated it to them in my heart.  Out loud I dedicated it to Joe.  Alysha came out to the show with Jimmy and we made a double date of our evening.  I am so glad they came out to support.  Turned out to be a fun evening.

A lot of hours have been leading up to tonight and the next three days and I'm really feeling the pressure for it to go smoothly.  What I need to keep reminding myself is that this is all for me.  I am not having this performed for someone else.  So chill.  All these people that are coming tonight took time out of their schedules to learn your music and read your script in character for you.  I think what I'm nervous about is falling apart once it's over and realizing it really IS terrible, or unoriginal, or not as funny as I thought.  I have hired the same dramaturg to come listen to two days of readings with the entire script complete with music all as it should be performed (just at a table and not on a stage).  I fell apart after our first meeting.  Though my time with her was constructive and I am NOW happy with my edits because of our time, I felt like such an amateur.  I AM one.  Do I know all the formulas and what is supposed to happen when in a story and why?  Well.  I do now.  Kind of.  But, I literally fell apart.  Like, laying down in the middle of the kitchen floor face down crying.  Poor Joe.  Anywho.  Jenny sent me this great Brene Brown clip about getting up again and going for it.  So.  That's what I'm doing.  I'm going for it.  Bold and confident.  I am sure to get struck down again, but it won't be for long.  Because I have that Brene Brown link ready for action: 

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-JXOnFOXQk

And because of this talk, I am going to add the quote that stood out the most to me (that is now at the top of my script) by Theodore Roosevelt:

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly….”

This musical is going to see the stage again, and it's going to be a better musical because of what I have gone through to get it there.

Here is what my work space often looks like:  Chocolate.  Herbal tea.  Water.  Lots of it.  Chap stick.  And usually that big red cup is filled with icy Diet Coke or a Coke slurpee.  I must have reached my limit.  It's always a sad time of day when I do.

Printed 12 copies of this for this weekend.  Big breath in and out.  Here we go!