What’s your blog about?

Lately I’ve been in a bit of a blogging funk because I feel like my blog isn’t about anything. It isn’t a blog with a cause to promote. It isn’t a blog that focuses on cooking or politics or interesting news tidbits from around the world. It isn’t about entertainment, or books, or technology, or activities around Ottawa.

It’s not about losing weight, getting fit, travelling around the world, depression, widowhood, or any other kind of journey of self-discovery. It’s not about getting married or having babies or starting a new job. It isn’t about any life changes at all, really — it’s all about maintaining the status quo around here.

I wouldn’t even really say it’s about parenting, as a skill, nor is it really about my kids and family, as there are too many taboo topics to really get a clear picture of our home life.

If I’m not careful, this is going to turn into a blog about Dance Show exclusively. Maybe I should consider a name change to So You Think You Can Blog.

My twelfth grade history teacher was a very nice man named Mr. Shultz. Or not. It doesn’t sound quite right. Anyway, we spent half the year doing a major unit on the Second World War, and Mr. NotShultz made it clear every week that our goal was to find an answer to the question, “What was the nature of the war?” None of us ever understood what the heck he wanted. Did he mean, what was it like to be a soldier? Yes, but more than that. Did he mean, what were the major strategies, and what were the lasting effects on world politics? Yes, but more than that.

I still don’t know what the nature of WWII was.

But I think what I’m after these days is figuring out what the nature is of this blog.

I feel like I’ve found my voice, I have a platform. Now, what is it I want to say? What do I want to contribute to the global opinion? I’m stepping up to the mike with nothing in the bag except idle chit chat. No one cares what I had for lunch.

It’s not that I’m considering giving up blogging or deleting all my old posts or anything remotely drastic. It’s just that lately I’ve self-censored several entries, not posting them because they seemed so frivolous and silly. And that’s coming from a girl who actually does post about Dance Show at least once a week. Sometimes twice.

I feel like I should actually say something. At least some of the time. I feel like my blog should be about something.

Recently I read similar sentiments over at A Common Grey Spider and Please Pick Up Your Socks. Both times I assured them that their blogs were interesting to me, that I’d be back to read them even if they wrote about what they had for lunch. “Your blog is you,” I said. That’s what it’s about.

My blog is me. That should be enough.

I guess I’m feeling melancholy with the bitter cold weather outside.

But just who am I, anyway?

First kid: Did not taste candy until he turned two. Only ever ate whole wheat bread. Had hot breakfasts of toast or oatmeal.

Second kid: Allowed to have one Smartie per day around age 1 and a half, when her older brother was toilet training. Only ever ate whole wheat bagels. Had breakfasts of cereal or frozen waffles.

Third kid: Just had a chocolate chip (“hash browns,” in her world) sandwich on white bread for breakfast.

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First kid: Never allowed to watch more than two half-hour TV programs per day.

Second kid: Watched a few shows per day; occasionally allowed to watch a movie.

Third kid: Just watched So You Think You Can Dance with Mommy over breakfast; has watched Barbie and the Magic of Pegasus about six times in the past week.

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First kid: Always drank diluted apple juice or milk.

Second kid: Diluted apple juice or milk; occasionally allowed a “coffee” (sugar and a spoon of decaf coffee in milk).

Third kid: Just had undiluted orange juice and chocolate milk with her chocolate chip breakfast sandwich.

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Parenting really wears the moral fortitude right out of you, doesn’t it?

One of my posts is being featured this week on Five Star Friday! I love Five Star Friday — I’ve found many blogs there that I now read on a regular basis. Many, many thanks to whoever submitted my post — I’m super excited and grateful.

In other news, a few very nice people have left me awesome and much appreciated comments about how much they like my blog redesign.

Funny story, there. I’m hosted on WordPress, and while I love WordPress, one thing that bugs is that there are only about 30 different supported themes on the site, and they are completely uncustomizable (I think I just invented a word there). When I first started on WordPress, I picked Blix for my theme — it was the only one I really liked.

Over the years, I’ve often gotten bored with Blix and tested out a few other themes, but they always had something about them I didn’t like, so I always went back to Blix.

Last week, a bug appeared in the Blix theme — rather suddenly, for no real reason — and everyone who was using that theme saw their blog pages blow up. The text was still there, but the formatting was missing; text overlapped or wrapped funny and was just plain ugly.

WordPress was working on it, but after three days they still hadn’t found the problem, so I changed themes.

And now I give you…Regulus by Ben Gillbanks. Totally not designed by me in any way. But I like it, and it’s nice to have a change every once in a while.

So welcome to the new face of Turtlehead. Now award-winning.

This week has been an interesting culinary experiment at our place.

I usually do the grocery shopping on Tuesday mornings for the week. I look over the week’s menu, make up the shopping list, and run around trying to pick up everything we need while the older two kids are in school.

But this week, the Captain was home sick on Tuesday. He was so tired and sad that I just couldn’t bring myself to drag him to the Superstore.

By Wednesday morning, Gal Smiley had joined him on the couch. Sir Monkeypants and I weren’t feeling too good, either.

This morning, I felt like crap but since we way overdue for groceries, I dragged myself and Little Miss Sunshine into the van — thankfully the older two went back to school today.

Halfway to the grocery store, I remembered I was supposed to be taking the van in for an oil change. It hadn’t had one in more than nine months. Apparently that is bad, so oil change won out. The garage people were freewheeling with the tsk-tsks, let me tell you.

So now, this makes three days we’re overdue for grocery shopping. It might not sound like much, but since I moved to a menu system a couple of years ago, I only keep enough in the house for one week’s worth of meals. This has really cut down on our waste.

But it does interfere with our ability to survive in crisis situations. If only we had a concrete bunker downstairs filled with Spam!

It has certainly been interesting trying to forage for meals for five every evening. We’ve basically resorted to everyone having their own meal — whatever they want to eat that they can find in the cupboards. I’ve found a few things in the depths of the freezer to defrost, too — just scrape a way that freezer burn, kids! Our frozen veggie and canned fruit stock is quite dimished, as well, but at least we continue to survive.

I guess we could survive a nuclear winter, after all. For at least four days, anyway.

Tomorrow, we MUST get out to replenish the larder. In addition, due to the house-wide illness, the laundry is piling up (we missed Laundry Day Wednesday), toys are in every room of the house, books and magazines litter every piece of furniture, and blankets and pillows are scattered on the floor of every room.

Being sick is like having a vacation from housework; I finally give myself permission to just let it all go to hell and curl up the couch in front of the TV instead. It’s kind of a crappy vacation, though — like going away somewhere only to have the airline lose your luggage and face pouring rain every day.

I’ll take it, though.

I missed Dance Show last night because I am busy fighting a plague. The whole house is infected, and it’s been three nights now since Sir Monkeypants and I got any sleep. Someone is always coughing or barfing or crying or sneezing giant green gobs of goo.

This morning I have a tickle in my throat and a sniffly nose but NO! I will not succumb. HEAR ME ROAR.

Anyway, between trying to do too much PTA work and keeping everyone relatively comfortable, Dance Show will have to wait. Alas.

There’s a great discussion going on over at XUP’s about extended family — cousins, grandparents, uncles, and aunts. Her post was inspired by Guillermo’s blog, which is a fascinating discussion of what it’s like to be an immigrant in Canada; Guillermo got us all thinking about how one of the things an immigrant gives up is all those great big family dinners and weddings and christenings — the sense of being part of a tribe, rather than just a nuclear family.

Growing up, my mother’s family was very close. My grandparents were married for more than 65 years and were the rock of that side of the family, and right up until I was an adult, all of my mother’s siblings and their children got together at least four or five times a year at Nana and Papa’s house. Every Christmas, Thanksgiving, and Easter, at a minimum, would mean a big dinner, giving an oral report to my aunts and uncles about how school was going, and playing with all my cousins.

Those were good times.

When I hit adulthood, I moved away. First an hour or so away, then to Ottawa, which was six hours away (closer to eight when travelling with three kids). I must admit, I really couldn’t wait to get away. I missed my mom, sure, but I wanted to make some space for myself. I wanted Sir Monkeypants and I to have a chance to figure out what our marriage was going to be without third party interference or advice. I wanted us to make a home of our own. We still went down to visit for most of the major holidays, but we also built our own life here.

Then we had kids, and suddenly I realized why people move to be closer to their parents when they have children. I’m sure if my parents or Sir Monkeypants’ parents lived in town, they’d be driving me crazy with their comments and their dropping by and their expectation that we’d have dinner at their house every single week.

But I do miss that feeling of having an extended family. I miss having other adults around that my kids look to as authority figures, other adults to help in bringing them up. I miss having a house crammed full of people every time you turn around. I miss seeing my nieces and nephews getting bigger, hearing about the details of their lives, seeing them getting to know my own kids.

A few years ago we realized that we were missing that sense of community in our lives — it takes a villiage to raise a child, and all that — and we made a conscious effort to create an “surrogate extended family” for ourselves. We invited the neighbour’s kids over for dinner; we made regular playdates with old friends who had kids the same age as ours. We made an effort to chat with people we saw on our street, and I got involved with the PTA to give our kids a stronger sense of belonging somewhere.

There’s still something missing, though.

We do the best we can; although I gripe CONSTANTLY about the drive down and keep threatening to stop doing it altogether, our visits south are really important to us. We encourage our kids to call their cousins (especially Sir Monkeypants’ sister’s boys, who are close to the Captain in age and are serving as his “brothers” since we refuse to produce a baby boy for him). We write letters to their grandparents and send them care packages of school art.

And we do get to see them a few times a year, which is better than having them across an ocean.

I don’t ever want to move from Ottawa; this is my home, it’s where my heart is. But sometimes I do wish the world were just a wee bit smaller.

I am not a runner. Gym was my least favourite class in school. The only B I ever got in high school was in gym, and that’s because my A+ in the health/classroom portion offset my C-minus physical abilities.

Middle age seems to be agreeing with me, though, because I actually had a great time at the Army Run yesterday. It was a gorgeous day, clear and sunny and crisp along the canal. Thousands of other runners were there, which was inspiring and really made me feel like I was part of something big.

Most of all, I made it, and it was GOOD.

I managed to run-one-minute, walk-one-minute most of the time, and I finished my 5K in 39:35 — that’s less than 40 minutes, baby. I’m pretty proud. Yesterday I wore my little “you did it!” dog tags around the house all day. Because I’m a survivor.

Also, I am totally ignoring the 70-year-old man who power walked along with me the whole way and ended up finishing about five minutes ahead of me. Kind of made me wonder why I bothered to run the race, you know?

My favourite conversations from the run:

One lady to her friend: You’re doing great! We’re almost there!
Other lady: STOP LYING TO ME.

10-year-old Girl to her Mother: Mom, we can’t keep stopping like this! We have to keep running, it’s a RUN. I’m not going to wait for you any more!
Mom [panting]: Just. One. More. Minute.

Man to his young son: You’re doing great, kiddo. Oh hey, a garage sale! Let’s just pull over for a sec!
Son: I’m going to say that to you in two hours when you’re at 20K in the half marathon.

So cute.

In other news, Gal Smiley turns five years old today! It feels a little anti-climatic, since she already had her big party, so I’ve already been through all the hand-wringing and dirge singing about MAH BABY GROWING UP. In fact, we’ve had kind of a hard week around here with her — a few potty issues, continued finger sucking, a refusal to eat breakfast unless spoon fed — so I’m kind of hoping for a little maturity now that we’re the big FIVE. Fingers crossed.

This morning we gave her our present, which was “REAL LIVE” walkie-talkies, and she was very happy. This afternoon I was able to lie around on the couch for 15 minutes while Gal Smiley went upstairs, and then I used the walkie-talkies to explain to her how to get Little Miss Sunshine up from her nap and out of her crib.

I’m thinking the walkie-talkies could be the dawn of a whole new era I like to call, “Parenting from the Couch.” Next up, remote diaper changing!