Walk

Baby Steps. Learning to blog again.

Yes, I'm back from an over four month hiatus.

In that time, my incompetence as a mommy blogger has been evidenced by the following:

• Blogher ads officially requested that I remove their link. That's okay - I was making less than zero revenue;
• I didn't provide any witty anecdotes about a great family ski vacation in Tremblant (well, I didn't ski, but it was fun nonetheless)... no fun pics (including space age inflatable leg boots a la "Lost in Space" that encased my tired legs during a spa treatment), no oohing and ahhing about the private hot tub and the wonderful accommodations, the non-stop gondola rides with the girlie, the pride in seeing my boy survive a bloody ski-to-the lip incident only to pick up and continue another 3 hours of snowboarding...
• Also absent - posts about major life milestones for not just one -the horror- but both of my kids:

My girlie lost her first baby tooth .... and now she's on the verge of losing the second;

My boy turned eleven. He's a tween now, people, and overnight he began eating two dinners and sleeping in every morning;

• I didn't weigh in on any of the hot parenting topics such as the TigerMom/Fun Mom debate - itching, just itching to get in on it but alas, left it too late;
• I missed writing about the beautiful Royal Wedding:
• I didn't reminisce about how I woke up way early to watch the other fairytale Royal wedding as a teen.
• I did not dish about how gorgeous Kate is and how I wholly approve of pretty much all of her fashion choices,
• Didn't note that William is still handsome despite starting to look more like his father than his mother these days ...
• (when we get totally caught up later, you'll understand why I was other wise occupied during the Wedding Day);
• Both US and Canadian versions of So You Think You Can Dance have started and I've said big, fat, nada...
• I didn't mention with glowing pride that both kids got A+ grades on their report cards... (oh, I guess I just did)
• I haven't gone on and on and on about gorgeous, spouse-endorsed crush - he speaks French, Mon Dieu - Bradley the Coop
• We lost a household member (poor Goldie, RIP) but gained a couple new ones. Did. Not. Blog. About. It.

My bad. But here we are.

And what would a post from me be without the occasional musical reference?

I've rediscovered the Foo Fighters. Their performance on SNL around Easter time, sealed it - they need to be on our couples' concert list soon (this just in - found out that I'm traveling when they're playing the ACC in Toronto come August - not happy that the Man may be going without me * sob *).

Can't think of a cooler alt. Dad in their 40s than Dave Grohl.

Enjoy.

So now what do we do?

My kids get away with a lot. They're good kids, but they know how to work the system.

Take my daughter, for example. She's four AND A HALF now, she's quick to point out. And she just graduated from junior kindergarten. In September she'll be a "senior".

But get this; she has her own room, complete with her own pretty bed...which she hasn't slept in since she was three.

Where has she been sleeping, pray tell?

Why, in her Mom and Dad's room, on the couch next to their bed. Mommy and Daddy need T-shirts with "LOSERS" blazoned across them.

How did this happen? Well, she used to go to bed pronto right a 8 PM, we'd tuck her in with her stuffed guys, give her a kiss good night, and she'd be good. No drama for the night.

But she started getting up in the middle of the night and crawling into bed with us. And then before we knew it, she was spending most of the night in bed with us... so our new rule was, get in the couch, if you're coming into our room.

Then somehow we ended up being too tired, and she weaseled her way into getting tucked into the couch right away, bypassing the whole bedroom ritual entirely. (I suspect it was the hubs that allowed this to happen on a night while I was out. Yeah, I blame him for everything, and this is no exception. No willpower against girls who have certain grown men wrapped around their cutie little fingers). And to be honest, there's something just too sweet about hearing your little girl's gentle breathing next to you.

It just became habit.

But this was ridiculous. It's just bad news to lose the sanctity of your own bedroom. It can't be good for a marriage. Bad enough that kids invade your entire consciousness, let alone your sub and then total unconsciousness.

She promised, though, that she would go back to her room, eventually. Before she was ten at least. Well, that argument didn't fly, so she deferred it to her sleepover with her baby cousin, which was two weekends ago. She slept in her room, with her cousin in the playpen beside her. Not a single hitch.

It was beautiful.

But guess what? She went right back to our couch the next day. Grrrrr. And I have little energy to fight.

So here comes my little hero.

"G, if I sleep next to you on the air mattress in your room, will you stay in your bed?."

"Yay, it will be like a sleepover. Yay Goh-Goh, I will, I will sleep there all the night if you're next to me!" she shouted with glee. Literally jumping up and down and clapping.

Her last words to me as she faded into sleep this past Monday were,

"Mommy, if Goh-Goh sleeps here with me forever, then it's okay, I'll sleep in my own bed."

And she did.

And she has every night now, since Monday.

With her big brother by her side.

I asked my boy on Tuesday if he wanted to go back to his room. He replied,

"Uh, no, not just yet. It's comforting hearing her next to me sleeping. It's okay Mommy. I'll let you know when I'm ready to go back."

Where did we get this kid?

And so his Mommy thanks him. And his Daddy too.

Because of him, we've got our bedroom back.

Not that we've got the energy to do anything with this new scenario, but it's the principle right?

"I wanna be a rock star"

The last post about my boy, well, I was concerned about raising a quitter. An individual who would be afraid to try anything new; be paralyzed by fear of the unknown.

I may have overreacted to my own internal neuroses.

Turns out the boy wants to be FAMOUS.

In the last few months of school, he'd been asking me the occasional question about acting. And about being on TV. This past year he has made a few in-class presentations, and really enjoyed working on the class "skit" for both the spring concert, and his French class. It has always been very casual, this questioning, just general curiosity.

A couple of weeks ago I spotted a tiny ad in the paper, to announce an open casting call for a boy who was of a visible ethnicity, between the age of 8 - 11, under 4 ft 11, who was athletic and outgoing. Hmm, sounded like some kid that I know.

The production company was looking for a boy to play a friend of this precocious carrot top, for an upcoming new TV series.

My boy used to LOVE "This is Daniel Cook" when he was about 5. Daniel got too old to continue the role, and the series continued with another cutie who reminds me a lot of the little G. To be honest, other than how cute Daniel looked, I found him to be a little bit wooden, especially after comparing him to Emily Yeung. She's a little firecracker, personality just shines from her ... a total natural. In any case, I wouldn't think Daniel is suffering much after moving on, as they are now producing TV shows specifically for him.

Shortly after finding this ad, I asked L if he was interested in trying out for a TV series starring Daniel Cook.

To my astonishment, he said "Yes, will I be famous?"

To which I replied: "Well, I suppose if you got the part, people might recognize you."

And then he said: "Sure, why not. That would be cool! Will it be like American Idol or So You think you Can Dance,? With nasty judges with English accents?"

Well, I didn't know about that. But I sent an e:mail, and after they replied, sent a photo of the boy looking athletic, cute, and hopefully about 10 years old. The assistant got back to me and we booked a appointment. She sent us a few lines for him to memorize.

I practiced with him about a dozen times. Not too many times, because he said he didn't want to jinx it by over-practicing. I was impressed by his enthusiasm. He really wanted the part, but at the same time was quite nervous. It was tough; I tried to be as encouraging as possible, but also wanted him to know that if he didn't get the role, it wouldn't be the end of the world. He was, at least on the surface, fairly casual about it. He told me he would do his best, but if he didn't get the part, he could always for something different. HE said that to ME.

On the day of the audition, we went through his lines a couple of more times (with his little sister chiming in every so often, echoing her favourite lines, much to his annoyance). We had a light lunch (he wasn't hungry) and then we headed downtown.

It was about a 40 minute drive, down the congested highway into the city. I hadn't been to that part of town in a long while, this area that many production companies call home. It was fun to be doing something so foreign, going into a world that I knew little about.

[Well, I do know a teeny bit about it. My brother actually had done some modelling and filmed a commercial when he was about 10 years old. And I accompanied him on the Kellogg's cereal commercial shoot, as I was in university at the time and only had one class that day. I'd forgotten that one of my life's goals at that time, was to be a stage mom. Don't know if it's still like that, but the massive spread of food they had for the parents/ agents and the kids themselves was certainly impressive to my impressionable student mind. I think one of the moms at that shoot was mother to "Lucy" in the original Degrassi TV series... but I digress...]

We found the building, and I parked my so-city minivan; then plunked the girlie in the stroller and off we went...



Into the dark hall where another dozen kids were waiting for their turn. Some of these children had resumes and professional photos with them. More importantly, many of the boys had their Nintendo DS's with them, something that my boy, in his nervousness, left at home.

"Noooooooo" he whispered with a smile on his face (it was one of his lines, and he could hear muffled cries from the other room as the kids auditioning were sympathetic to his plight).

Turned out that the wait wouldn't be too long, they were only about 30 minutes behind. Thirty minutes for me to get nervous, but my boy, with the smile on his face, just chatted it up with his "competition", laughing, joking, asking everyone how old they were. There were also girls trying out for the part, something he found quite hilarious, for whatever reason.

When his name was called, he bounded down the hall, quickly passed me his gum (yuck!) and walked into the room closing the door behind him, not even missing a step. I could see him through the frosted glass, and heard him answering the casting director's questions.

"Are you big for your age?" the redheaded woman asked.

"Yup, people think I'm a fifth grader all the time!" smartypants replied.

And then he did his lines, right on cue, enthusiastically and with a smile in his voice. They said thanks for coming and good-bye. On our way out, I asked if they would call. And the assistant said "no, that's it."

So that was it. As we walked back to the car, my boy asked whether I thought he would get the role. Suspecting the answer was "no", I said maybe not, but the important thing was that he tried something new, and he discovered that he liked something new. His mom and dad were so very proud of him. He shrugged his shoulders and said that maybe there'd be a next time.

"By the way, can I take guitar lessons? And when I'm famous, can I drive by the school in a limo?

Sure, rock star, sure thing.