Limbo

This morning my mother read my blog. And called me before 9 am to tell me that I don't sound very happy.

And yeah, I guess I haven't found my way out of the bitter barn yet.

I had this great post in my head to explain it - how we are tired of living in limbo, that the contractor informing us that he wasn't coming back for another 2 or probably 3 weeks, really threw me for a loop. We've been tripping over stuff that we didn't want to put in the basement beause it was about to be finished and then we could really get on with real life - unpack the rest of the kids toys (because all of the interesting ones seem to still be in the boxes) and have a TV, and well - hang all our pictures (Marc's office is in our bedroom at the moment which is convenient for blogging late at night, but not so nice the rest of the time).

Anyhow I am running on. In general we had been waiting for the contractor to come back in to fix a bunch of other things too - like the fact that we still have plywood stairs going upstairs. And no basement. And half a laundry room. And nowhere to put anything.

He pushed the carpet ball into our court (yes, pushed... he's a lovely man, he gently pushed to see if we would handle it - which I of course was all over like a fat kid on a Smartie- control of SOMETHING!! Yeah!!) but his contact is out on vacation until Thursday and his replacement has not returned my calls. The one thing I thought I could get done - yeah not so much. As a results oriented person I found it - well slightly demoralising.

So over the weekend, when I blew a gasket over moving things from one place to another (this was the prelude to realizing I was sick - I was in a LOVELY mood, breathing fire and all) I informed Marc that we were going to start using the basement. Because we could clean it up in a few weeks before he came, but that I was fed up of tryign to cram 2200 sq feet (old house, minus a few things, but we had a huge attic) into 1100 sq feet (new house, yes we still need to do some downsizing).

So by Sunday night we had moved a bunch of boxes down, found the kitchen, bought a big TV that we couldn't install but got on sale, plus all the other stuff that goes with it (I am useless in this department, there are subwoofers etc - that word always makes me think of dogs).

And by that point I realized I felt awful, and then add on Stu and the whole homework thing yesterday and bam, there I am down in the dumps again.

Then out of the blue the contractor sends us an email late last night saying that they can work in our house for 3 days this week, is that okay.

Uh - YEAH! Only now we have to try and clear out the basement - tonight. Oooof. With the help of our neighbour Steve (and his wonderful wife Karen - she has been a life saver since we arrived and I don't know what we'd do without them) and yet MORE of their garage, we have an empty basement this evening. I have seen the list of things that the contractor has put together for the guys to do and if they do it all - well my house will be nearly finished by Friday night!! I am trying not to get too hopeful, but fingers crossed. Now if we could get some carpet in...

And I am off to Montreal on Friday for the day with Julia. She doesn't have preschool, Stu has sub (as in sandwich) day at school and Marc can pick him up at 3, so Joolsies and I are going to hop in the car after dropping Stu off and hopefully (traffic permitting) pick my mum up around 10:30 at her house and go shopping at Fairview (mall I've been going to since I was a baby - they have an H & M, I am in such withdrawal) and then to Ikea and hopefully visit with my Opa at some point before heading home. Oh yeah, and pick up some Montreal bagels. Basically what I have been longing to do for years now - just get in the car and visit my mum for the day.

On the Stu front - he brought home extra work again today. In fact he even brought some home at LUNCH. I am already finding lunches pretty tight - the drive to the school is only about 5 minutes, but by the time I get him and Julia out of the school, into the car and home there's 10 minutes of his lunch hour gone and then there's the whole leaving 40 minutes later to take him back on time and then get her to preschool.

And somewhere in there they both should have had a healthy lunch.

Have I ever mentioned that my kids are really really slow eaters?

I blame it on them being born in a country where most businesses shut down from 12-2 pm for everyone to go home for a nice cooked meal. You know, whole meat and potatoes and veg type of thing (and no, we didn't do the whole big lunch thing, but they still managed to fill the time as if sensing that htere should be more to what they were being served).

So homework at lunch (luckily it was just writing two sentences! but that's a lot for Stu right now) was a bit of a stretch for me. The good news is that the teacher came to talk to me when we were leaving (cut another 4 minutes off that 40 to eat) and told me that he had worked really hard for the first 40 minutes of the morning and earned two stickers and that everyone in the class had clapped for him and she was really proud of him (I had also sent a note this morning saying he hadslept very badly and has been having nightmares for the last few nights - he keeps crawling into our bed). We all had a bit of a talk, I asked about this D he is so worried about (he got a D on something and is now worried it will be on his report card) and I think she's a very nice woman and a good teacher. And maybe - if I survive - she will be good for him because she is pushing him, which is something I am just not able to sustain a lot of the time because he pushes back SO HARD.

It's just such a fine line between challenging him enough to see his potential and turning him off school - poor thing, he's only 5 (okay, 6 soon) and he's worried about dissapointing me with his report card (she handled that really well when it came up). We will have to see how it goes - but he's going to have to pick up the pace a little. This evening we met a couple of boys 2 grades ahead of him, one of whom lives a few houses away and who were out playing with - wait for it - LIGHT SABRES. Too cool. We went over and chatted and his mum said that Stu has to come by and play in the evenings if they are out. I pointed out that if we could get all out work done at school there would be time - trying to motivate him not to have extra homework.

As for me - well I think I may have been right in my self-diagnosis and was smart to start the emergency reserve of anitbiotics. I am feeling slightly more human today and hopefully will be back to normal by the weekend... (I seem to have a lot of hope that a lot of things will be done by the weekend - my sinus infection, the basement...)

Tomorrow night is Meet the Teacher and I just realized I have about 20 pages of reading I have to do - and it's 11 pm already...