Three Cups of Tea

A few days ago I finished this interesting book: Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin. It's Greg Mortenson's story of attempting to climb K2, becoming lost on descent and coming across a very remote village in Pakistan. His time in the village had such a profound effect on him, that he returned to the United States with the mission of building schools in Pakistan. It left me feeling excited, and understanding that educating children is the best way to promote peace in the long term. And so I'm hoping that you will check it out: www.threecupsoftea.com, if you order the book through this website (through Amazon) a 7% of proceeds will be directed to the organization.

happiness

I can't write about sadness and then not write about the happiness too. Today was a day full of happy. Avery is having her fourth birthday in a couple of days and today we had a big party for her.
My birthday party "solution" worked well. Avery got the most amazing gifts. Handed down dress up clothes, a wet suit, crayons, paper, stickers, homemade playdough, bubble bath, a homemade jewelry box. All things useful and beautiful and mostly unpackaged!! We rented the community hall where there was space enough for running and playing. We made a train out of chairs, played pin the tail on the donkey, played an everybody wins version of "hot potato" and whacked a pinata. Fun, fun, fun. My parents and Steve's brother Chris drove up from the southern parts of our beautiful province to take part. All good.

The weather is so agreeable here right now, I have almost forgotten how miserable we were a week ago. All of the kids got to play in the playground and many of them opted to go without coats.

Before the party, I went to one of my book club meetings. I am part of three very different book clubs. All of them I am fond of for the unique opportunities they have presented me with. I am surrounded by amazing and interesting people. And I am exposed to books that I might not pick up on my own. This particular group has Sunday morning brunch meetings. Yummy!

At home in the evening, I prepared dinner for my family and I got a phone call with THE BEST NEWS EVER. And I mean it. I think this news might even be better than the when I found out I was pregnant with Ruby (and that was pretty exciting!)

So it was a good day, and I am filled with happy (and cupcakes). I hope that happiness has found each of you in a small way today too.

a cup of tea

I am reading a book called Three Cups of Tea. Its the biography of a man named Greg Mortensen who spends most of his adult life building schools in Pakistan. It starts with the tradition of tea, tea in all forms for anything business or not in this part of the world. I will get to a blog eventually about my favorite reading material but this is not it. I'm not far enough into the book to form an opinion, it just reminded me about my love of tea.


I'm not a coffee drinker and so by default I am a tea drinker. Though even that can be disputed since its rarely more that twice a week that I drink tea. But when I do, I really enjoy it. Really.


Several years ago, I inherited some beautiful tea cups from my Great Aunt Maria when she moved from her house into assisted living. This was very sad to me. I remember drinking tea with Maria on many occasions and the fact that she would no longer have need of her tea cups...well, it was just plain sad. And so I've kept them on a shelf in my kitchen, where they sit and I wash them every few months. To add to my little collection, Steve's grandmother chipped in a few from her collection which she is ever trying to reduce with seeemingly little success. Those lovely little teacups were also added to my shelf and grudgingly washed as necessary.


Recently, as in yesterday or the day before I decided that I need to start using them in a bid for "ALL things lived in" (meaning there is no point in keeping things we are not using). I've started taking my tea in these beautiful little cups. I drink mine black, or green, or red. It's a bit lonely though, drinking tea by myself, so if you're so inclined to join me consider this your invitation, I may even dip out to buy a few little sugar cubes which I'll keep in a pot handy for your visit.

day in and day out

Aidan is learning about gases, liquids, and solids. And the effect that hot and cold have on them. Today his class did an experiment that involved making juice into popsicles. Only they didn't actually use juice. They used peach flavoured crystals which they mixed with water to make a sugary beverage. Aidan is not amazed that the liquid will become solid in the cold, that he already knew. What was amazing to him was that juice could be made out of powder. I had to explain that it wasn't really juice. We had a discussion about what makes up that powder and while unimpressed with its ingredients, he insisted that it still smelled good.


Today only one girl asked Zoe about her glasses. After the general excitement yesterday, when all her friends wanted to know about her new style, she was a little tired of answering questions and felt overwhelmed by the attention. I told her not to think about it too much because now most of her friends know and the glasses wouldn't be a surprise for them tomorrow. She was thrilled to discover that I was right. We spent a few minutes reading Igraine the Brave before picking Avery up from school. Its about a girl who wants to be a knight even though her parents are magicians. Zoe got it for her birthday and we decided to share it, just the two of us.

Avery hit another child in her preschool. This is the second such incident(or possibly the third or fourth since I am dependant on the teacher bringing it to my attention). She won't tell me about it. Last time it happened she told me willingly only to face certain reprimand. Now she's not so anxious to share the story. Except that Emilie hit her and then said she was sorry and Avery remembered to forgive her. Beyond that I'm not sure what happened exactly, but Avery has agreed that she will tell me tomorrow when she feels better.

The joys of having a crawling baby in our house will never cease to amaze me. Once again that is lightly tinged with sarcasm. Ruby is into EVERYTHING. Seriously. A couple of days ago she knocked over the garbage in the bathroom to play with the contents. Mostly snotty tissues. She is attracted to the back steps like a magnet to the North Pole. And she loves the clank of the empty beer bottles that I have moved to a couple of different locations...by now I should have figured just to put them out in the recycling. But she is happy, happy, happy. She has discovered her independence in her mobility.

My children are perfect. And I love being their mom.

Gotta go get the screaming, yelling, fighting girls out of their bath!

sadness

I am trying very hard not to let the sadness overwhelm me. I suffer from postpartum depression. A pre-disposition to it, I believe, though my mom would prefer that we just didn't talk about the depression that hangs out in our family like an extra person in the room. Our skeleton in the closet. My sister believes the key is to keep herself so busy that she doesn't have time to think about it...but you have to sleep eventually.

One might think that if I stopped having babies the side effects would go away. Maybe. But should I have let that make my decision, as if there always was one about having children, be led by my own mental illness? Possibly, the same way that I have to consider that my genetic material also includes atopic tendencies for asthma, eczema, heart disease, and hypertension. And that my husband's genetic material includes sight problems, heart disease, diabetes, and drug addiction. Instead, when I found out I was pregnant with Ruby, I decided I would take control of it, before it took control of me. I worked harder at sleeping enough, exercising enough and finding time for just me in the midst of a demanding (based simply on size alone) family. But there are things I can't always control.

And that's where fighting the sadness comes in. Its okay to be sad. I believe it serves a purpose...making the good times all the sweeter. It's just not okay to let the sadness overwhelm me and control my life.

If you ask me today, I will tell you that I think I've beat it. That I may actually be the happiest I've ever been in my life. I can see my life for what it is in the big picture. I have this beautiful, amazing and interesting family and everyday I get to participate in its growth and development. I have a husband who loves me all the time, even when he doesn't like me. We are not hungry, cold, or sick. I have interesting friends, strong women and interesting men. I remain unmedicated. And there is no reason to believe that any of this will change in the near future.

But today I am sad. For silly reasons. I miss Shannon. She's only in Halifax, but that might as well be a world apart for how costly it is to get there. And she's having another little babe who won't know me and who I won't know. And I miss Ryan which is utterly ridiculous, I haven't seen him since Christmas and missed him only vaguely. But tonight I find out he's leaving the country again, semi-permanently, which I've known for months, just not the "when" and there will be no chance for me to see him before he goes. Can I go back in time and hug him a little tighter the last time I saw him, knowing it would have to last another year or two? And I'm a little worried about Chelsea, she knows why, we've talked. And Zoe got glasses. Damn, she looks cute; she likes that she seems to have achieved the sudden look of a teenager, and is pleased to be glasses buddies with many people she loves and respects. But somehow I still feel like a failure for having passed along that genetic material. What other terrible things will befall our children in their lifetimes that we should have considered more seriously before signing up for this ride? So I'll be sad, just for the moment. And then I will let it all go.