I can't. My right nipple hurts.

Attention all readers: sign up as an official follower of my blog for a chance to win a hard cover edition of Postcards Never Written...yes, it's a literary masterpiece book. Yes, I won the Pulitzer Prize Saskatchewan Readers' Choice Award. 

I suck at a lot of things, including any sort of self-promotion. I loathe it. I spent roughly 2 years writing my book, and an additional 4 years contemplating whether or not I had the balls to release it. So what to do after spending almost 6 years making something happen? Spend a grand total of one minute marketing it. (a majority of this one minute involved handing the manuscript over to my parents and then running like hell in the opposite direction...)

So without further ado, allow me to toot my horn, albeit rather awkwardly. Thanks to very kind and generous friends, along with awesome word-of-mouth, I've sold out of books! It's now getting reprinted and I'll be getting more copies in early March. You can pre-order your very own copy on my website at www.janita.ca

Here's my disclaimer:

1. I've been told (by people other than my family) that it's funny. But really, who can you trust these days?
2. If you don't like it, give it away to someone you hate.
3. If there's no one you hate that badly, give it to your baby as chew toy.
4. Once you decide it's not an appropriate chew toy for baby, toss it to your dog.
5. If dog hates it, line litter box with pages. Cats, I suspect, have a very wicked sense of humour. Don't let their grouchy demeanor fool you. Whilst performing their daily constitution, I have a feeling they'd appreciate my humour. At the very least, they'll claw my pages, not your furniture.
6. I donate a portion of proceeds from the sale of my book to World Vision - to date, I've donated over $10,000. That my friends, makes the aforementioned 6-year journey to write this book worth every minute.

I'll also be randomly selecting a follower from my blog to win their very own HARD COVER version of Postcards Never Written....that's right, hard cover!!! The hard cover edition will not be available for sale - other than my Mom and a few other peeps, you will be one of the few people on this planet to own one. It'll sort of give you the feeling of what it's like to almost be extinct.

Just click on the blue button on the right hand side of this blog that says "Join this site". All you have to do is type in a valid email address, that's it. You can even use a fake name and keep the grey stalker-like image for your profile pic if you choose. I don't care. The only time I'll have to lure you from your hiding spot is if you win this give-away, and even then, I'll keep your deets private. I'll randomly select a follower and the winner* will be announced the first week of March.

*side-effects of winning may include bouts of nausea, vomiting, diarrhea and erectile dysfunction. Please see Doctor if symptoms persist. If you are in any way related to me, chances of winning are not good. Simply because I will randomly re-select someone else if I happen to pick you. But don't think you won't get anything from me. I'm not made of wood. You'll receive an all-inclusive weekend get-away package! Important note: the inclusive package part refers to my kids being shipped to you (C.O.D....have a heart. I'm paying for a new shipment of books over here), and the get-away part is in reference to me. Yeah! We're all winners.

Here's a sneak peek at the revised version of the cover:

For more information about my book, visit my website at www.janita.ca

Huge thanks go out to Lorne Cardinal (Corner Gas) and Joan McCusker (Olympic Gold Medalist and CBC sports commentator) for providing reviews for my book! I didn't even have to beg (very hard). Also, a heartfelt thank you to Kelle Hampton for writing the foreword for my book. If you haven't done so already, visit her blog at www.kellehampton.com - trust me, she'll make you want to be a better person.

And a very special thank you to the lovely and talented Yvonne Parks! She has helped me out from day one, back to the first design of my book in 2007, to business cards and other graphics in between, to the recent creation and design of my blog. She's absolutely amazing, and I can't say enough great things about her. If you're in need of any design work, whether it be for something in print or a revamp of your blog, I highly recommend you check her out. For more on her work, visit her website at www.pearcreative.ca

Incidentally, her 9-year old daughter also has a blog...I have not met Aila in person, although her random thoughts and comments leave me in stitches. My all-time favourite?  When asked to help with the supper dishes, she responded: "I can't. My right nipple hurts." I totally stole her line for the title of this post because clearly, it's relevant to what I have to say. "You want me to deliver a highly-effective sales pitch to help promote my book, and bewitch you with my effusive charm so that you buy multiple copies for you and all your friends? I can't. My right nipple hurts." At any rate, she's a gem. Visit her blog by clicking here.

Now, I'm off to pack for a trip back to my homeland. If you don't hear from me for the next week, one of the following has likely happened:

1. After surviving 5 hours in a vehicle with three small children, and no husband to help me, I'm suffering from a nervous breakdown. I'm in such a state, that I've decided to start farming with my five brothers. Send for help. Immediately.
2. We're in the ditch somewhere between Moosomin and Virden. Having picked the KFC bucket clean, my children are now eating me to stay alive.
3. I was having so much fun in a vehicle by myself with three small children, that I decided to blow right through Manitoba and blast into Ontario.
4. I have smashed my parents' annoying dial-up modem through the wall, preventing me from further communication until my return.

Jack's take on Isla's magic eyes...

In my quest to ensure that Isla feels at ease wearing her glasses, I decided to have a discussion with Jack about making sure he tells her he loves them, and that he looks after her if someone starts to tease her. I started by telling him that Peanut was a fairy-tale princess so she needs glasses. Here's how that discussion went down:

Me: Isla's a princess so she needs glasses.
Jack: Princesses don't wear glasses.
Me: Yes they do.
Jack: No. They don't. Only Queens wear glasses. And some old Kings, but not princesses.
Me: Well, then, time to write a fucking fairy tale where they do. Mommy wears glasses.
Jack: I guess mostly old people like you have glasses. You have movie glasses, Grandma Mariapolis and Grandma Snow Lake have reading glasses, Daddy has sun glasses. I guess everyone in the whole wide world has sun glasses.
Me: Yup. A lot of people have all kinds of glasses.
Jack: Why does Peanut have to wear them? She looks funny.
Me: Honey, Peanut has to because her eyes are magic. She needs them to help her see better. Her one eye isn't as strong as the other, and these glasses are going to help make it better. Most importantly, she needs you to look after her. Promise me you'll look out for her and help her out if someone's making fun of her? Pinky Square? (when we lock pinky fingers, he calls it a pinky square, instead of a pinky swear...it's too cute to correct.)
Jack: OK, Mommy. I promise. Pinky Square. Mommy, are you going to wear glasses until you're old as Grandma?
Me: Yup. And when I'm a Grandma, cuddling your babies, I'll wear my very best glasses so I can see them perfectly.
Jack: When will you be a Grandma?
Me: When you have babies. Then I'll be a Grandma to your babies!
Jack: Wait a minute...you'll be a Grandma and a Mom?
Me: Yup.
Jack: Aaaah...that's hard work.

You said it, son. The day after this discussion, Peanut was jumping up and down on a chair. Jack, having taken our discussion quite seriously, turned to her and screeched:

"Peanut! Would you quit banging around? You're going to hurt your loose eye."

And with that admonishment, they both turned back to the task at hand and went about their day. I'm not entirely sure where Jack got this idea from...I suspect the way Peanut's one eye rolls inward got him to thinking that it's actually loose. I'll have to explain to him that there's no danger of it actually falling out. I'll also have to explain that this sort of outburst of caring wasn't exactly what I had in mind when I told him to look out for her. At any rate, I suspect his intentions were good, and that's really all that matters.

As for Peanut? She's doing wonderfully with her new specs. I'll be honest, it was a bit of a tough slog at the beginning. After wearing them for one day, she wheeled up to me on her cart, handed me her glasses and stated:

"Me no want these no more, K?"

As I looked at her, my heart started aching all over again. I started the dangerous slide into a life's not fair mood. I was thinking that no two-year old should have to worry about keeping glasses up on her face. If I don't put the strap on them, they slide down her wee nose, if I put the strap on to hold them up, she gets welts. I'm told the skin will toughen up, but I hate watching her go through it.

So I told myself again:

Life's not fair. But life is good. She'll only think wearing glasses is a big deal if I let it be one. And it's not. I know that. I just want her to be happy. I want her to feel special, not different. I want to hand her the world. I want to protect her from heartache and pain and grief. I don't want her to have to worry about pushing glasses up on her tiny face while she's playing, or have the skin on her nose toughen up so it doesn't hurt. I just want her to be a kid and do kid things and run and laugh and play without worrying about keeping a pair of glasses on her little two-year-old face. I want everything to be perfect for her. But it won't be. That's not the way life works. And that's alright. We don't get to decide what we're handed, but we certainly get to decide how we make it work. That's life. And life is good.

The next day, she showed me how she's making it work. She was stringing beads on her Dora necklace. She can do that now, because she can see. In that moment, I could almost hear her telling me: Wearing glasses is no big deal, Mommy. I got this. That's life. And life is good.

Can we have it all?

When it comes to making lists, I’m a complete nut job; I’ve been known to leave a note to remind myself to “make a list”. There’s something slightly sadistic and deranged about that. Mock me. My husband does. But seriously, I'm of the age now where I need to leave myself a sticky note on the washing machine if I've tossed something in there that can't be thrown in the dryer. This is usually a shirt I've thieved from my sister's closet; I have a propensity for ruining things that aren't mine. If I don't leave myself a note, I'll wander in there a mere forty-five minutes later, completely oblivious to the fact that I've put that shirt in the washing machine, and into the dryer the entire load goes. It's like I've dropped down from another planet. Forty five minutes...that's all it takes for certain parts of my brain to be wiped.

Furthermore, in my quest to do it all, I’m delusional in believing that writing out a detailed list of what I have to accomplish each week, and ticking the items off, will make me a better person which will magically equate to a more fulfilling life. At the start of each week, I wake with magnificent resolutions which include (but are not limited to) the following: start that blasted 30-day shred to eliminate post-babies paunch (formerly known as waist); morph into saucy minx and rock my husband’s world (my excuse du jour is that he hasn't visited Dr. Quick Snip yet, rendering the entire act far too dangerous...), figure out what I want to be when I grow up, have the guts to follow my dreams, spend more quality time with my children, return phone calls in a timely manner (translation: before a full year expires), find out how to keep a houseplant alive for more than three weeks (not including cacti) get all photos into digital albums, update baby journals, clean out cupboards to avoid massive trauma to the head, finish organizing the basement, paint bathroom, eat more vegetables, take vitamins, and be a better person in general, particularly to that one person who makes me want to coil into a ball and play dead whenever we’re in the same vicinity.

Let’s get right to the burning question, shall we? The one I ask myself while sorting dirty laundry, visualizing my husband’s castration as it’s apparent he’s physically unable to turn his filthy, mangy socks inside out before tossing them towards, not in, the hamper basket. The question is this – can we actually have it all? Or is it considered unforgivable to want more when we’ve already been blessed with plenty? While wiping the snot and spaghetti sauce from my child's beaming, “I-just-pooped-my-diaper-too” face, I often find myself drenched in melancholy while lamenting the loss of dreams yet to be fulfilled. And I wonder - when your dreams turn to dust, when they’ve successfully been snuffed out by years of going to work every day, monotonous chores, mountains of bills...what becomes of them? If I stopped long enough to have an intimate chat with my inner child, to ask her what it was she wanted again, I’m not even certain I would know which questions to ask anymore. And quite frankly, I’m scared of her. That little girl I remember all too well, would lay me out flat, outraged by how far I’ve strayed from what I wanted to be when I grew up.

For the record, let it be said that I wanted to be a criminal psychologist. (And I believed I had a huge head-start growing up with my five brothers.) I ended up being an agricultural economist. Hell, at least they rhyme. That’s a start. I ended up pursuing the latter because I knew it would make my parents proud. I grew up on a farm and my love for agriculture courses through my veins; perhaps not enough to foster a burning desire to farm with five brothers, though. In some cases, the high risk of insanity trumps preference. But I likely ended up being one of the very few Aggie students that used all course electives to pursue my love for psychology. While my friends were learning how to weld and inseminate a sow, two skills for which I have no idea how I’ve gotten this far in life without, I was in the throes of passion over psychology. My transcript reads like a woman on a mission to systematically destroy her brain: linear economic modelling, child psychology, price analysis, microeconomics, genetic analysis, macroeconomics, abnormal psychology, econometrics, financial accounting, social psychology, applied statistics...I need to stop now. My brain hurts. (from trying to remember what's currently in the washing machine...) 

For what it’s worth, I think we can have it all – just maybe not all at once. This is an important point to remember and one that often paralyzes me...I get an idea stuck in my head that I have to do this, followed immediately by I have to do this, right f*cking now, without for a moment considering it may be wise to perhaps drop something off the already generous to-do list. Hell, no. I'm not that smart; I just add it to the pile. Then, just to add to the already momentous amounts of fun, I call myself a big loser if I don't finish everything that week. (Which quite frankly, would often require breaking the time-space continuum but hey, quit whining you loooooooooooser.) Where does that voice come from? I would love to meet the little gremlin and strangle it.

My husband is completely baffled by my ongoing list of things to do. When when find ourselves with some spare time on our hands, the discussion inevitably goes something like this:

Him: Let's watch a movie.
Me: How about we knock a few things off our list, then watch a movie.
Him: What's there to do? The house is relatively clean.
Me: What's there to do? Why don't you start by going through your boxes of shit under the bed?
Him: Why? They're under the bed. No one can see it.
Me: Yeah, but I know they're there. It bugs me.
Him: You're a freak.
Me: Yes. But you said "I do"
Him: So this is the "for worse and in sickness" part?
Me: Hmmmm...yes.
Him: Out of pure curiosity, because that head of yours sometimes frightens me, who exactly is performing the audit on your list of things to do?

Ouch. Must be that gremlin, who I suspect will never be happy. Even if I collapse from exhaustion, there will always be more. I guess that's the beauty of life, right? There's more to do than can ever be done...and I'm slowly starting to accept that. And once in a while I stop and wonder, "What would it feel like to have everything done that I ever wanted to get done?" Friends, I'd be bored out of my mind. Not to mention, I'd have missed precious moments with my children that I'll never get back. Real-life application of economics degree: work is a fixed component. It ain't going nowhere. Time with children? Variable. They're only with us for a short while. For the time being, I need to adjust the equation. I'm learning I may need to put a few dreams on hold while my kids are young, while they need me. Cause one day they won't.

In the meantime, I'm going to attempt to make amendments to how I approach life in general. I need to slow down a little, sniff some cacti. I'll start by merging my own perspective on how I approach work, with my husband's perspective. He gets stuff done in his own time, and is usually much more content in the process. To illustrate our different approaches, here's a summary:

His motto: Eat, drink and be merry, for today may be your last.
My motto: Procrastination is like masturbation. It may feel great at the time, but in the end, you're really only f*cking yourself.
Combined motto: Eat, do a chore, drink, do a chore, be merry while doing anything, and fix that leaking faucet or today will be your last, and enjoy every day as if it were your last.

As for those dreams of mine? I've tucked some away in an imaginary box, to be opened again and examined more closely at a later date. I believe that dreams are often all that remains of our childhood, so they should be treated like precious jewels. Every once and a while, I'm going to pull out that box and have a look. I'm going to hold one of those dreams in my hand, and decide if now is the time to go after it. If yes? I'm going to go out there and do my best to make it happen. I'm going to adjust the equation to make it work. Supply of energy, and demand for it. Ebb and flow. Finding that optimum point. (Upon reflection, perhaps I needed that economics degree after all.)

The worst thing that can happen is someone will tell me they think my dream is silly...that it's just not possible. I'll nod and smile, and I'll be sure to thank them for their profound feedback. But I'm still going to go for it. I need to, so that one day I can look my children in the eye and boldly say that I lived my life with no excuses or apologies.

In my quest to have it all, though, I've learned one tiny secret...the secret to having it all is being fully aware that, in comparison to most of the world, you already do.