Walk around with bold legs.

It's no secret i love wolf parade. Perhaps because i know them all from my starry eyed youth in victoria. Perhaps because that song speaks so many words to me. Words that i can't say. Perhaps because i think it's the best song i've ever heard.

suebob said that i was like a dandelion. Strong, but fragile. I am.

I have a follow-up doctor appointment soon. I know he will ask me how i am. Can you laugh and can you cry? That's his barometer. I can laugh. I laugh all the time. At camp people chastised me that my loud laugh kept them awake. Can i cry?

No.

How do i feel? Melancholoy mostly. I still feel like me. Just a sadder, quieter version.

I have no anxiety. That's a good thing.

My sadness pumps through me. I don't even know what i am sad about. Beautiful children. Beautiful house. Husband who loves me more than i deserve to be loved.

I guess, if i am to be honest, and that is what this is all about - i am sad about all the things i am not. I'm not the mother i want to be. I don't have the friends i want to have. I am alone. I am always alone. I can spend my days at the school. But, i'm not in kindergarten. And i'm not a teacher. I'm just the mom that is always there. Playing with the kids. Ignoring her house and the life that she doesn't have there.

Shane is travelling again. He's away most of this week and then he's off to Philadelphia for five days. Then? Then i will meet him in miami next friday. Four days alone. Me and him.

We haven't been alone, well, since 1997. I don't even want to go. His business had enough points to fly me out to meet him there. At his bootcamp.

Really, i like when he's away. I like the lessening of my burden. I like it when it's just me and the kids.

I'm not ready to travel again. Going to california this summer sent me into this depression. I don't feel ready to do it again.

My very favourite part of this time of year, which has thankfully turned into a beautiful and warm early fall, is watching the canada geese making their practice flights before they take off for the winter. Training the young geese before their long journey warms my heart.

I also love the colours and the smells. Warm days followed by breezy cool evenings.

I'm feeling better. My steps are a little lighter, my heart doesn't weigh me down as much. I can see in all the colours and sounds of happy children dancing in falling leaves that, although winter is just ahead, spring will come again after that. And that makes me feel like everything is going to be okay. I am going to be okay.

I will find my way through the long, wet winter and i will spend lazy afternoons at the lake again later.

My head still aches and throbs, my dreams are filled with tiny tremors in my brain that wake me up throughout the night. My hands shake with hunger, yet food repulses me. Everyone assures me this too shall pass. I can't do handstands or cartwheels anymore. Something that i used to do every afternoon with the other kids at school. I haven't done a flip or belly drop on the trampoline in months. Lots of the little things that brought me childlike glee have been stolen from me.

I can still run races and search for little tickly spots. I can hold hands with a frightened kindergartener and assure him that everything will be okay and tell him that yes, i would like to come to your house to play. I can cherish the small moments of childhood giggles. I can do that again.

My family is not well. Tristan is sick. Parker won't sleep. I'm tired and i just want more than fifteen minutes alone.

It seems like so much to ask. Fifteen minutes. I could tell you so much.

So many words left unsaid.

But, tristan is not well. And she's big. She's nine.

I snuggled in beside her tonight, rubbing her sore tummy. Noticing that as we spooned together her feet hit my ankle.

I rubbed her sore belly, told her that i loved her and everything would be okay.

I can't remember the last time i climbed into bed with her. When shane goes away she sleeps with me and parker. Replaces shane. Poor girl.

Where has my life gone? How is it that i have this gigantic, beautiful girl, with the long brown hair snuggled up beside me.

How come i am so lucky?

I have family visiting. My house is clean, the kids rooms are clean, and my freezer is full of spaghetti sauce and homemade chicken soup. I am being walked around like i'm made of thin glass. Fragile and careful. I'm aware of how quiet i am, how tired i may or may not look, how short my patience is, and how all of the sudden my failings as a homemaker are showing. But, despite it all it is nice to be taken care of.

Tonight at dinner, a dinner made with love, parker refused to eat. Proclaimed it "gross." He left the table in a huff. I went to the kitchen with him and he had a classic parker temper tantrum and proceeded to hit me, try to bite me, and call me "stupid mommy." He closed in and bit me hard on the thigh. By instinct i pushed him away. I knew right away when i heard a snap and he instantly turned blue and started crying.

I asked shane to check his mouth. Shane was mad. At me. Parker's front tooth was broken. Half of it gone. Left in my pants and fleshy thigh.

I have never felt like a worse mother. My beautiful son. Missing half of his front top tooth.

The all school campout was an amazing adventure in fun, sleep deprivation and anxiety.

The first day was filled with so much fun. I loved every single minute of it. Laughter and games, obstacle courses and spaghetti, endless games of jess verses all the kids under eight tag, and campfire songs.

Eliza, toby and i slept together in a hut and tristan was further up in the woods in a tent with her two friends and their mom. All the kids were asleep by ten. As i heard the kids gently drift into exhausted snores you could hear the clink, clink of all the parents getting out bottles of wine and beer, chips and salsa and homemade goodies.

The parents seperated into two parties. One up top where the big kids were in tents and one down by the hut at the picnic table. We sat and we drank beer and yellow tail and we laughed at our children stories and the little moments of parenthood. Celebrating the fact that all our kids were asleep and we were without them, but together.

I forgot the fact that i haven't really eaten for a month and my body is full of medication. I got a little drunk. It filled me with anxiety and sadness. I wandered back and forth endlessly between the two campsites, saying hello to both parties. Trying to find tristan's tent in the dark woods. Sitting alone marvelling at the stars and watching all the little critters that bring the forest alive at night.

This is why people think i'm odd. I can't socialize for hours on end. I can socialize for minutes at a time before i need a break. I can talk for hours to one person that i am comfortable with. Shane is often half-way up the stairs to bed while i am still chatting away to him.

I went back to our picnic table and there was only a few parents left. The drunken mom of tristan's best friend laying down on my lap telling me how amazing i am and how much she loves me. Two a.m. became three a.m. Soon everybody went to bed. I wandered up to check on tristan one last time. My manic energy at night. It makes it impossible to go to bed.

When i was all alone and all the kids were asleep and the parents had drifted off into alcohol induced sleep i wandered around some more. I was overcome with the desire to call my brother in sweden. One last mom asked me who the hell i was calling, i told her shane. I would have, but i can't call home at four in the morning when my mother-in-law is sleeping there.

It's been almost two years since i drove my brother to the detox centre in vancouver. He had three seizures from alcohol withdrawal on the way there. He weighed less than one hundred pounds. He was going to die. I haven't called him on the phone since that day.

I saw him briefly when he visited from sweden this summer. But, we didn't really talk. Just the casual conversation that you can have while watching four children run and play.

I wanted to call him and tell him i was sorry. That i still love him and i carry him in my heart. That i see myself in him. That i can't talk to him anymore because i don't trust him and i don't want him to die. And if he does. I don't want to see it.

Of course, i couldn't call him. So i called my voicemail at home and listened to some messages. I sat alone in the field. I went to bed wondering how i could have had a day filled with so much fun and end up here sad and lonely in a field. I went to bed and snuggled in with eliza amidst the snores and complaints from twenty other children.

I slept for an hour.

Another day full of breakfast and fun. And a boy with an anaphylactic reaction to a wasp sting. An injection of adrenaline given by me, followed by a crazy drive to emergency. But that's a story for another day.

I'm off camping with 70 kids and 100 adults.

The sun is shining.

Wish me luck.

The strange thing about living on the west coast, aside from all the damn hippies, is the weather. We go through this long beautiful summer. Months without rain. Beautiful places to go and fun things to do. Beaches, lakes, mountains, trees. Every summer there are forest fires and burning bans. And then the rain begins. And it rains for eight long months. Eight long months of dark and dreary days.

The rain has begun. Two weeks ago we were spending lazy afternoons at the lake. Swimming and basking in the sunshine. Now we are bundled up in jeans and raincoats and rainboots. Or, in the case of the damn hippies, wool socks with birkenstocks and shorts.

The rain doesn't bother me. It's the darkness and gloom that surrounds it. Empty playgrounds and packed shopping malls. I hate the mall. People wandering endlessly, spending hard earned money on crappy things made by people who have crappy lives.

I started taking this medication in the sunny, summer months hoping that it would be effective in time for the long season of rain. It's not working yet. The side effects have diminshed enough that i feel more like myself, except for the restless sleep and brain shivers and the repulsivness of food. But, i still feel this overwhelming sadness. Not all the time. Sometimes i'm happy. Running endless obstacle races with the kids until i can barely move or breathe. Watching tv with my husbands arm around me listening to the rain quietly fall outside, small moments of friendship.

But then i am sad. I need to sleep more, eat more and stop sitting up at night listening to sad songs while my family sleeps quietly and happily after long days of school and friends and laughter.

There's this thing that happens when you're sad and depressed for a long time. And when you're loved.

You want to ruin everything.

Destroy the thing that loves you.

It's like suicide, but more painful.

I am trying so hard to be better. To be happy.

but, i'm not. And i love you. Dear internet that listens to all my complaints and applaudes me on my successes. And tells me how cute my children are.

I just want to talk to somebody and somebody keeps melting away.

I can't cry anymore. The drugs have stolen that from me.

And that would be a relief.

I have had a bad day.

And i know you're tired of my bad days and you want good stories. The stories i tell, full of hope and appreciation.

I want that too.

I'm sorry.

Today is parker's third birthday.

Aside from my sadness that he is three and really not a baby anymore i feel so happy to have him in my life. As he opened his presents tonight he exclaimed;

"wow! you guys sure got me a lot of stuff!
i'm a lucky little guy.
awesome!"

Parker has been perfect to me since the moment he was born, quietly and planned in a sterile operating room, while the student nurse wept quietly in the corner. It's not the perfect vision, but it's mine. All of my other kids were born under stressful conditions. As they wheeled me down the hall with him in my arms i felt like the luckiest person in the world.

I cherished those first few days alone with him in the hospital, despite the onset of the predictable red-headed response of infection in my body.

After eliza was born we were pretty sure that we had enough kids, sure enough that shane booked an appointment for a vasectomy. I remember a few days after i came home from the hospital finding some sample jars and stuff from his missed vasectomy. It was kind of a profound moment for me. The way life can change on a moment in time. A moment where you sleep in instead of heading to an appointment.

I was so full of love for parker from the moment i saw him, before i saw him. I loved being pregnant the fourth time around. It took me that long to really let go of my insecurities and love that belly. I loved every moment. Every twist and turn.

In the months after he was born i was desperate to have another baby. I mourned and was angry that when the doctor leaned over and asked shane if we wanted my tubes tied "while he was in there" that i didn't speak up and yell "no!"

I didn't. And now i can't have another baby.

Recently i'm okay with that though.

I guess since weaning parker in the spring i've realized that i'm pretty damn lucky for what i have.

Four beautiful kids - 3,5,7 and 9.

Happy birthday parker.

xxoo

The new routine for parker, eliza and i involves a little play on the playground after kindergarten and then we head home for lunch.

Usually, they eat and i sit and stare blankly at the wall, or do some bloglines reading.

Today, i was watching dora *shudder* with parker and eliza was on the computer. She spun around on the chair, looked at me, and said:

"mommy i love you."

I'm feeling a little better. Save for the fact that i can feel my hair growing. Every single follicle on my head is electricly charged.

And i feel like i am living on another planet. Sitting outside myself watching the world go on around me. Am i happy yet? No. I have moments of clarity. Little tiny moments where we marvel at the gigantic dragonfly that died a painful death in the netting of our trampoline. And parker asks me again about death.

"what happens when you die mommy? do we eat you?"

The complicated mind of my almost three year old. It pulls me out of the fog in many brief moments throughout the day.

Yesterday morning we were in the shower together and he asked me about my tattoo and tried gently to scrub it off my belly. We melted into a giggly fit of tickles and giggles.

But, i still feel the foggy gloom of sadness and the complicated business of being grown-up. I have been spending most of time at the school, becoming part of the kindergarten class. Me and parker. It keeps me busy and happy to be a part of all the smiling faces, grubby hands stained with oil pastels and flaking bits of glue.

Last night i was complaining to my country vet friend that my chickens have stopped laying eggs. No green eggs for over a month.

It all started when two of the hens got broody and started sitting on eggs right before i went to california. They were each sitting on six eggs. I marked each one with a black "x" because chickens? Not so smart. Each day i'd go in and the other ten hens had gone in, sat on top of the broody hen, and layed another egg in the clutch. At the end of the day the little broody hen would be spread out, flat as a pancake, over a dozen or more eggs. Struggling to keep all of them warm.

I'd reach under them and grab the non-x'ed eggs and toss them into the woods because i cannot eat eggs at the same time as chicks are forming in other eggs. City girl mental block.

Generally chickens hatch after 21 days, but from history i know it can sometimes take up to 27 days. After 30 days we had no chicks. I solemnly took out all the eggs and threw them in the trash. And then?

They all stopped laying.

So, my vet friend said "you have to think like a chicken. You need to expect them to act like chickens, not people."

Sounds simple. So, this morning i went out to watch them and think like a chicken. The first one up and out of the house is dumptruck the rooster. He crows a bit and then stands at the door and as each hen jumps out he drops his wing, does a little horny dance and proceeds to chase her around the coop until she gives in and lets him jump on top of her for a very quick quickie.

Thinking like a chicken? Those damn roosters are annoying. And, about a month or so ago shane, tired of chicken poo on the balcony, spent an entire weekend securing the chicken run so that they couldn't get out anymore.

So, my chicken brain is telling me that those hens are sending me a message that they want that damn rooster out of their house so that they can lay some eggs in peace. My girly heart had been telling me that they were sad about the chickless eggs. But my chicken brain told me No! They will gladly kill and eat chicks after they hatch. They don't give a hoot about those chicks, chickens don't think that way.

So, dumptruck? He's been sentenced to a life outside the chicken run. At least for awhile.

On friday night i was laying in bed, not sleeping, thinking that it was time to stop being so damn self-absorbed. Begin writing about the important things again. Like kids.

Like how eliza started kindergarten with glee. How she has danced around the house all weekend, happy and excited. Planning what she's taking for sharing (show & tell) and what she's going to have her reading buddy teach her. How the school has embraced her allergies and made it a safer place for her than our own house.

How tristan has moved "upstairs" at the school. Into a grade 4,5,6 class. How she's the youngest one in it, but the quickest to solve all the math problems. How the year is full of promise and challenge for her.

How toby is in a class with all his bestest friends. How he runs out of the car every morning so excited to see and play and learn. How he has lost his voice from all the excitement.

How parker has strep throat. Poor parker.

Instead, after my doctor appointment on friday i came home with a very expensive prescription for 150mg. effexorXR.

I took the first one yesterday and then spent most of the day feeling like i was going to die. In bed. I made it downstairs for a few hours and then stumbled back up to bed for a restless, twitchy 12 hour sleep.

I woke up this morning still feeling like someone had taken the cuisinart to my brain, yet, feeling strange electric shocks here and there in my frontal lobes. I read some websites on effexor and how it is killing me.

What the hell am i doing to myself? How am i going to make it through this week.

Shane is worried and loving and sweet. I asked him last night to just hold me in his arms. He did, for hours. I am going to take a little break while i adjust and freak out. I am going to spare you from these intimate, self-absorbed posts.

For the past two days we have spent every minute from around 2:00 in the afternoon until the sun begins to set at the lake. We have been surrounded by friends from school, plenty of snacks and some smuggled beer.

The kids have had a wonderful first week of school. And so have i. I have spent my time playing duck, duck goose with a bunch of the cutest five year olds possible.

We have spent a few small hours of our time watching crocodile hunter. A few nights ago i was watching tv and shane said "steve irwin just died."

It took me a few minutes to figure out what he was talking about. And then a few more to comprehend the ferocity of the internet that we knew before his wife did. The news of his death was on the internet witihin 90 minutes. That freaked me out.

Not that it takes much to freak me out nowadays. I just had an anxiety attack on the balcony after a brief conversation about enrollment at the school.

As such, i have recently taken a clonazepam and i am having to concentrate REALLY hard to type this. I'm having trouble. How about some stats?

Yes!

• 11 pounds lost
• day 20 of effexor
• still seeing bright lights all night long
• libido hovering at zero
• social anxiety still at 10
• after initial stomach flu, back to constipated

Awesome! Makes you want to try it right? Dr. appointment friday where we will double again to, hopefully, desired dosage of 150mg/per day.

It was a day and what a day it was.

Last night going through my old photos i was struck by that old cliche of how time just sneaks by you. The days are so long, but the years so fast. Three kids in school. How the hell did this happen to me?

Eliza was fine, great. Excited and ready. Full of anticipation. When i asked her about the best part she said;

"I'm excited to learn new things."

Really. It was a perfect day.

We spent the afternoon at the lake enjoying the last few hot, hot days before fall comes. Playing with friends. Balancing on logs. Building (and wrecking) sandcastles.

Dinner of tacos, everybody's favourite, and toasts of high points of the day, and the best parts of summer, and the most exciting thing about school starting.

Tomorrow morning eliza starts kindergarten.

I have spent most of this long weekend at the school preparing emergency notices, laminating pictures of her, scrubbing every surface with bleach. Making sure that the school is safe for my little girl.

All i can tell you is that life-threatening allergies suck. They suck the life out of you. Worrying every moment. Holding your baby close. Sniffing the breath and food of every child around you to make sure that they are not going to kill your child. Your baby.

We have lived with these allergies for four years. But, i have never left eliza's side. Never a playdate or a party that i wasn't there. To make sure. And now she is leaving me.

Ada, through a friend, talked about googletrapping. It is such an awesome idea. I love the thought of finding old friends. Bringing them to you through writing.

I would love to do that, except i have no old friends. I've never really had friends. Just shane.

No matter how cliche it sounds, nobody has ever known me like he knows me. I've never been myself with anyone else. Not at anytime in my life. I have always felt like i was living my life around other people and their needs. What they needed me to be. I have always been that person.

The less pretty, but supportive one.

The less athletic one, who celebrated your gold medal while holding the silver.

I suppose what i would really like to googletrap is my family. I wish i could go back in time before i had a blog. I wish i could keep my secret vox blog and never have started this drowninginkids thing which i love so much, but has changed everything.

I wish i had friends.

I'm a terrible friend. I will always make excuses to excuse myself out of meetings and playdates. I can't talk on the phone or in person. My kids have lots of playdates, but i always anxiously watch the clock for pick-up time because i dread those few moments of adult interaction. Dread is really not a strong enough word. I love people, but i hate talking to them, but i want to love talking to them because i really love them.

My god, i'm a mess today.

I've been struck with parkers stomach flu at just the time that i need to be available to many people. I am already weak mentally, socially, and physically and now dealing with this absolute depletion of every reserve i have has sent me for... i don't know. A regression.

Today has been a step backwards.