Another Late Update

Sorry for the delay. I simply got distracted yesterday and forgot that it was Monday and therefore a posting day. Whoops!

Bean is finally better after over a week with a cold that quite simply kicked his ass. The doctor found no infection and his lungs were clear, so the fever was just his body fighting off the latest cold virus.

Comfort and Self-Care

Poor Bean is sick. He has been since last Wednesday, with a low-grade fever that just won't quit. The paediatrician was completely booked today, so his mother will be taking him tomorrow. We figure it's probably yet another ear infection, as those are the one thing he can't seem to shake for the life of him. It always takes antibiotics, even though ear infections are often said to clear up on their own. He hasn't complained of ear pain, but that's not necessarily significant with him--he's not much of a complainer when he's actually sick. We can always tell when he's truly under the weather, because he goes quiet. He spent most of last Wednesday cuddled up with his mother or me (whenever she wasn't available to cuddle), and has by all reports been extra clingy all week. I've been back at my job since Thursday evening, so I only have second-hand reports about all of this.

With any luck he'll have antibiotics tomorrow, and things will go back to normal. Selfishly I'm hoping he'll be ready to go back to daycare by the time I get back from work. I adore him, but having him at home 24/7 is mentally exhausting for me. When he's sick but not feeling too bad, his behavioural problems come out in force. There's even more shrieking and tantrums than usual, more outright refusal to do anything, and he gets extremely crabby and whiny and demanding, which, quite frankly, dances on my very last nerve. Also, a week of no school for him means he's not getting any social contact with other children, and it means his mother will also be fresh out of any remnant of patience. It's not good for anyone.

Keep All Those Plates Spinning

I realise this blog has exactly one reader, but I feel I must nonetheless apologise for missing Monday's posting deadline. It's been a heck of a week, and by the time I had a minute to myself on Monday, it was already bedtime. On Tuesday I called in sick to work with a migraine and was mostly too out of it to update, and today I was back at work for a training session.

So, here you have it, a Wednesday update rather than a Monday one.

A very quick update

I've been trying to think of a topic to write about all week, and failing. I did promise I would update on Mondays, so that's what I'm doing, but I'm ashamed to admit I don't have anything to say. So instead of a thoughtful and well-composed entry, instead you'll be getting my stream-of-consciousness ramblings today.

Life has been incredibly busy lately. Work has been keeping me later than usual, and last week I had to get the car repaired the morning after. Then there was grocery shopping the same day, then next day my girlfriend and I spent the entire day doing our freezer cooking for the month. On Thursday I got up early and tried (unsuccessfully) to finish the freezer cooking, then packed up and left for my job.

I've been working steadily since then. So, in short, I haven't had time to do anything except run around like a crazed, headless chicken. I've been trying to fill what little free time I have productively, but it's been a struggle. Mostly I'm so tired I can't see straight.

In the past I wouldn't have felt guilty about taking a few hours for myself today, but that's no longer the case. I can't shake the feeling that my girlfriend is slowly coming to resent me more and more as time goes on. I'm pretty sure she's convinced that I do absolutely nothing with my time, that I'm forcing her to carry the load of caring for Bean and the house on top of having to go to school part-time. 

So I've been trying extremely hard to make myself useful when I'm home. I make a point of getting most of the groceries (though I don't think she sees it that way), of cleaning the kitchen and the bathroom and vacuuming when I'm home, and doing as much of the laundry I can. She does her own clothes and Bean's, but I try to get the linens and everything else along with my clothes. I try to make sure meals are prepared and ready, and I load, run and unload the dishwasher as much as I can.

Whatever I do, it never feels like enough. I'm away from home for five or six days at a stretch, and it must seem like I get to have a mini-vacation while I'm not there, because I have all this time to myself. Actually, because I work 12 hour shifts, it actually comes down to 12 hours of work, 1 hour of commuting time (on a good day, with no traffic; on a bad day it's more like twice that), 1.5 hours of cooking/dishes time, 1 hour of shower/other personal grooming, and half an hour of "free" time if I want to get 8 hours of sleep). But I can understand how it must seem like a sweet gig to someone who's not in my shoes. After all, I have no responsibilities outside of work and feeding myself, right? So, vacation.

Also, as usual, I'm worried about money. My girlfriend told me that she won't be getting money for Bean's daycare for several more weeks and that I would probably have to pay for February on my own, and then got angry with me when the announcement stressed me out. Bean's daycare costs more than my mortgage, for the record. It's almost as much as my paycheque.

I realise that she has no control over the money from the government (though her statement of "It's not like I spent the money on frivolous stuff!" is specious, as just before Christmas she told me she used some of it to buy presents because she felt "stupid" not having presents to give people "just because I'm poor."), but the anger she then directed at me felt unjustified. I wasn't accusing her, I didn't even say anything to her. I merely made the mistake of trying to work out how I was going to pull the money together on my own out loud. I suppose she felt I was attacking her, but I think I can be forgiven for being a little stressed when I'm told that I'm suddenly going to have to pull an extra thousand dollars (and more!) out of my ass on less than three weeks' notice.

I am going back to work in a couple of hours. Today I have extra "free" time because I'm flipping from a day shift to a night shift.

Tomorrow I have taken an appointment with a therapist. I am hoping that a couple of sessions a month and some "homework" for a while will help me learn better skills of emotional regulation and self-regulation. If there's one thing I've learned, it's not other people that are the problem, it's me. I can't change the people around me, nor should I, so the only thing I can change to help me be less frustrated and stressed is myself.

I need to simply learn to deal with the fact that my girlfriend thinks I'm a useless lump who trapped her in a life she never wanted (she hates having to take the language class that makes her eligible for the government money that lets us pay for Bean's preschool), and not let it get to me. In a couple of years, when she's finished her studies and it's time for us to consider the next big step in our lives, if she decides that living with me is still untenable, I'll be in a better position to help her make the best decision for her, and if she wants to leave me, I'll (albeit reluctantly) help her do that without suffering too many financial repercussions. I'm hoping that by then she'll have changed her mind, since with any luck she'll be studying something she loves by then and maybe not feeling as if I tricked/coerced her into ruining her life.

In the meantime, therapy seems like the thing to do. If I can learn how to manage my emotions, it'll be easier on all of us.

In conclusion, here is proof that, even after a 16 hour cooking day, we still know how to clean like pros. ;)

The New Year Has Arrived!

It was my birthday today. Happy birthday to me! I'm officially 35 years old, and to be honest I never thought in a million years that I would be where I am today at 35.

This is a good thing, in case you were wondering.

Overall, I am very blessed in my life. I have a family that I love, pets that adore me (and the feeling is mutual!), a steady job that I am unlikely to lose except under truly dire circumstances, and a house that is all my own if you don't count the mortgage. Both my parents are alive, in relatively good health (considering they're both in their seventies), still happily married and more than willing to poke their noses repeatedly into my life. I myself am in good health overall, am surrounded by good and supportive friends, and have a number of hobbies and activities that I find fulfilling in my life.

So, lots to be grateful for.

I've decided that 2014 is going to be a big year for self-improvement. This is technically not a New Year's Resolution, because I was already thinking about it in December, and I decided that rather than give myself an artificial start date and put off the self-improvement until January 1st, I was going to start right away. So that's what I did.

There is a lot about myself that I need to work on, but almost all of it boils down to chronic procrastination. Yes, I am part of the roughly 20% of the population who define themselves as chronic procastinators. Everyone procrastinates, of course. Anyone who says they never put off a single task they find aversive is either lying or deluding themselves. That being said, procrastinating once in a while is not the same as chronic procrastination. Procrastination, for me, has been a problem since my early teens, and at its worst it seriously affects not only my quality of life, but also the people around me who sometimes end up having to pay the cost of my having put things off.

What I noticed recently was that when I procrastinate, it's usually in the context of a self-defeating spiral of anxiety. I get anxious, so I procrastinate, which then makes me anxious, and then I procrastinate more. It's a form of short-term mood repair, but is ultimately very self-destructive. Furthermore, because I have an avoidant personality, I found that I was withdrawing more and more into myself as a result of the anxiety, and therefore not spending the kind of quality time with my family that I wanted. This was a big wake-up call for me. For the first time I have the family I always wanted, and I'm pulling away? No. This will not stand.

In light of this, I've been listening to the iProcrastinate podcast by Professor Tim Pychyl, whose website can be found at http://www.procrastination.ca. I happen to find the website itself kind of klunky in its design, but thus far I love the podcast itself. It's just the right mix of theory (academic and otherwise) and practical applications thereof for me, and has already offered some very good insights into the phenomenon of procrastination.

The one thing that has stuck with me since I started listening a few days ago is the idea that the feelings of guilt that stem from procrastination are actually the result of living in a way that's inauthentic to one's true self. This hit really close to home, and hard enough that it made me sit up a bit in the car (where I was listening to the podcast) and think that, yeah, that sounds exactly right. Putting things off, especially important things (and isn't it always the important stuff on which one ends up procrastinating?) always ends up with me either in a mad rush, or crippled by anxiety (which in turn results in more procrastination), and that's not who I want to be. I also have a huge problem with perfectionism and all-or-nothing thinking (they go hand in glove) which in turn leads me to procrastinate ("If I can't do it perfectly/all at once, then I won't do it at all!")

That's why I decided not to wait until the New Year to work on my procrastination. I figured I would take Pychyl's advice and "just get started." I did have some projects that I put off starting, if only because I knew I didn't have the time and attention for them right then. January was just around the corner, and a sagacious delay is not the same as procrastination. As Pychylputs it: "All procrastination is delay, but not all delay is procrastination."

One of the major components of ending procrastination, according to Pychyl, is to make what he calls an "implementation intention." It's essentially a concrete plan for oneself, framed either as an approach or avoidance goal (the former being preferable to the latter), the more specific the better. So if, say, I want to become more reliable about flossing my teeth, the process might look like this.

1- I want to floss my teeth regularly in order to have a sparkling white smile and because my mouth feels nice when I do it (Approach goal. An avoidance goal would be "I don't want to get gingivitis or have tooth decay." Avoidance goals are, apparently, psychologically harder to stick with).

2- Every night after I take my toothbrush out of the glass but before I brush my teeth, I will put down the toothbrush and floss my teeth first. (This gives me a concrete set of steps that will allow this to eventually become an unthinking habit, something to work into my nightly routine, and by not making it the last thing I do, it makes it easier for me to follow through on implementing my intention.)

So because there are lots of things about myself that I would like to change (most of them small, some of them big, all of them important in some way),I've been spending time coming up with not only a comprehensive list, but also coming up with a series of implementation intentions and strategies for the coming months. Changes need to be small and gradual, but also consistent.

The short list of stuff I have right now is as follows, in no particular order of importance:

1- Health habits (walking, eventually running, getting a grip on my mental health, etc.)
2- Writing (writing regularly, honouring writing commitments--fanfic and original--, finishing my work, submitting work for publication)
3- Knitting (working on more projects and rediscovering my enjoyment therof)
4- Family (spending less/no time on the computer when we're all home together)
5- Mindfulness (this may well fall under health habits, but I also want to focus on not letting negative thinking influence me as much)
6- Cooking (cooking more, mastering the art better, cooking more from scratch)
7- Housekeeping (keeping the house tidier than I currently am)
8- Work (actively pursuing career options, being more assertive about my job)
9- Friends (making a point of keeping in touch, which I am notoriously bad at)
10- Blogging (posting once a week, getting my thoughts organised, etc.)

Part of my resolution to post regularly in the New Year will be my commitment to all these changes. I want to be accountable for the changes I'm trying to make, and the only way to do that is to put myself out there and therefore honour my commitment. In fact, one of the first implementation intentions I'm going to make is one regarding blogging, and when/how I'll be able to post more regularly.

It's difficult for me to form habits because of my irregular schedule. I can't say "Every day at X time I shall do Y thing," because on some days I work from 5:30am to 5:30pm, on other days I work from 5:30pm to 5:30am, on other days I don't work at all, and some days are spent recovering from a night shift. So a daily routine is next to impossible. That being said, I think I can still find a way to form good habits and to get into a kind of routine, just one that isn't as conventional as it might be. I just have to figure out what works and what doesn't. I've been using a tool suggested by Pychyl known as the "unschedule," in which I plan my day backward, in a sense. I write down all the things that I know get done no matter what--morning routines, evening routines, meals, work times, etc., and then from there I figure out how much time is left over to do the rest. It's been working pretty well so far, though it needs some fine tuning.

So there you have it. This year is the year I plan to put an end to my procrastination once and for all. That way I will open up all that "extra" time to spend with my family, with Bean and my girlfriend and the pets, and hopefully free up some time to write about it here, and share all the exciting stuff happening in my life.

Pre-Christmas Post

Christmas this year is going to be yet another gift extravaganza for Bean. I am not entirely in agreement with the number of presents his mother likes to give him, as he's three and already has more toys than he knows what to do with, but it makes her really happy to give him all this stuff and I'm unwilling to take that away from her.

This year the focus has changed considerably with Bean's new taste for all things pink and purple and frilly and sparkly. He recently discovered Monster High (God help us all), and as I mentioned before in this blog he's become quite fond of Barbie.

The piece de resistance of this Christmas is the totally refurbished, custom-built Barbie house that his mother has spent days working on. It's huge. It's a good four and a half feet long, three feet high and a foot and a half deep. She already had the house (purchased over 20 years ago from the family who built it for their daughter), but it was tatty and faded and needed an overhaul. So she has been painting and wallpapering and tiling the house and spray-painting doll house furniture and buying little dollar store tap lights so that the house will be well-lit when he's playing with it. It looks phenomenal, to say the least, and I'm quite sure his head will explode when he sees it. The colour scheme will not only go well with Barbie, but is bright and funky enough that it will also work for all his new Monster High dolls (he's getting one for Christmas, but I have no doubt there will be many more in our future).

As for the rest, he's getting stuff we know he'll love. Play-doh, Playmobil sets, and lots and lots and LOTS of train tracks. Of late he's been building elaborate tracks that are truly a joy to look at, but the scope of his vision is too broad for the number of tracks he currently has. So his grandfather and I both bought him more straight tracks, curved tracks, connecting tracks, and I found a set that has a collapsing bridge so that he can stage a railway "akkident" if he wants. It's pretty cool. He's also getting a LaLaLoopsy doll, a doll stroller (for his favourite doll) and some doll clothes, as well as other assorted smaller items.

The big present I got him is a LeapPad. He's obsessed with computer games, and he can already name a bunch of different platforms on which they get played. ("No, Mama, it not on your 'puter, it on Kongwegate!") The trouble with this is that he constantly wants to play games, either on our computers or on our smartphones, and sometimes we simply don't want to, or don't have time to sit and supervise him. If he could sit still and do it, it wouldn't be so bad, but he consistently wants games that are adult-level and then insists on doing it himself ("No! Me know to do it!"), often pushing our hands away from the mouse or keyboard in spite of repeated admonitions not to do so. My solution has been to simply not allow him near my computer anymore (I have a laptop, and his shenanigans mean that he often risks damaging the computer, or at the very least hurting me when he tries to pull my hands away, because he tends to twist my fingers and/or wrist, and he's pretty strong for his age).

So getting him the LeapPad is the product of a bit of self-preservation as well as a good learning opportunity. LeapFrog has great products for children. He already has what he calls his "puppy game," which allowed him to learn his letters at a very early age, and which he adores. The pad itself has a number of features that you can find on any tablet, but it's geared toward kids his age, complete with games that are age-appropriate and with characters he'll recognise. It's my hope that he'll gravitate more toward that than toward the time-consuming and invasive pass-time that playing computer games with us has become. I know my girlfriend doesn't mind having him on her lap while she plays games, but I myself don't find that time particularly rewarding, for him or for me. I'd rather do something with him that doesn't involve a screen. Or, if it does, I'd rather watch a movie or TV show and talk to him about what's happening and what he thinks it means, rather than clicking away at a computer game.

I've also been spending far less time on the computer when I'm at home. I log in briefly in the evening to check email and see what's been going on, and sometimes I'll have it on during the day when no one else is home, but in those instances it's usually to listen to a podcast or watch a TV show while I knit. It's been interesting to see how I fare with limited access to social networking, and it's been instructive and enlightening to see that I have become more dependent than I would like on the gratification of instant feedback from Twitter in particular. So I'm determined to continue with this new habit of not being constantly online, and seeing where it takes me.

I will be posting again next Monday, hopefully with a Christmas recap and maybe with a longer post about my plans for the New Year. Possibly not all in the same post. ;)

Plans for this blog

I have been remiss in blogging here, even though it feels like I've barely started. I have decided, therefore, that from now on I shall make a point of posting here once a week, sometime on Mondays.

Why Mondays? you ask.

Good question.

Here's the thing. Most people tend to have their free time on the weekends. They work all week, get up early and come home tired. In my case, because my schedule is so varied, my days off aren't necessarily on the weekend. In fact, 50% of the time I end up working over the weekend (like today).

Originally I had planned to update on Sundays, then realised the error of my ways. See, on days when I work I could probably manage to post an entry here (like now). The problem arises when I'm NOT working. Bean is home on weekends, you see, which means that all my time and energy is spent either making sure he's not injuring himself (or the pets) or dealing with his constant demands for attention. Bean is an extrovert, and he is incapable of playing quietly by himself about 90% of the time. He wants me or his mother (or preferably both) not only with him at all times, but actively engaged in whatever activity he's currently involved in. Needless to say, this makes blogging in any meaningful way difficult in the extreme.

Once Bean has gone to bed, I spend that time with my girlfriend.That means that I can't just ignore her in favour of typing away at the computer.

Mondays are, all around, a better day. On days when I'm working, there's no problem. I won't be interrupted, because there's no one around to interrupt. When I'm home, Bean and my girlfriend are both at school--all day in his case, and for half the day in hers. That gives me several hours alone at home in which I can get stuff like this done.

I actually have quite a few personal goals that I'm putting in place for the New Year (though I'm starting now--no time like the present, am I right?). I'll likely be talking about that a lot here, since some of it involves improving my own mental state, especially when it comes to Bean and some of the problems I perceive with his behaviour. Since I'm not in a position to change him (for reasons I'll get into in a different post), the only thing I can change is my own reaction.

I've also been very low on energy and patience for the past few months, and I think my parenting is not good as a result. Therefore I want to change my thinking and my attitude so that I can be a better step-parent to Bean. He's a high-energy kid, and I don't want to feel resentful or exasperated whenever he gets loud and demanding and screechy and whiny. Instead I would prefer to react with patience and try to work with what we've got. This is especially true for the mornings. I consider myself a morning person, but even though Bean is an early riser, he tends to have multiple tantrums/meltdowns throughout the morning over small things (breakfast, going to the bathroom, getting dressed), and sometimes it's all I can do to make myself get out of bed because I simply. don't. want. to. deal. with. that. I like having quiet mornings with coffee and just getting the day started on the right foot, and having to fight with our preschooler the entire time makes for an unpleasant morning in the extreme. I realise I'm digressing, so I shall cut that paragraph short. I'll get into it another day.

I have also decided that part of the reason I'm so short of patience these days may be indirectly related to the internet. I spend far too much time noodling aorund online. So part of my new goals is to only spend limited and focused time on the internet. Writing for the blog will be part of that, but I am no longer going to simply have my browser/Twitter/whatever open to check every three seconds to see if someone has updated. The instant gratification is very strong, and it means I'm not spending time on other, more important things. So part of my strategy will be to not have the computer on at all when my family is at home. This will be difficult at first, but I think it will ultimately be a good thing for me, to devote all my attention to them and not divide it with online stuff in the interim.

That's it for now. I may write a proper, structured entry tomorrow, or I may wait until next Monday, depending on how much time I have tomorrow after running errands and whether or not I can make all my ideas come together in time for a coherent post.

In unrelated news, Angel the Alien gave me a Liebster award on her blog, which was lovely!  http://diaryofanalien1.blogspot.com/2013/11/i-got-liebster-award-no-not-lobster.html

I'm afraid I don't read enough other blogs to be able to nominate anyone right now, but I am so pleased she thought of me! :)

Thanks for reading!

Reconciling With Pink

Growing up, I identified as a tomboy. My best friend was a boy, and together we spent many joyous weekends and summers romping outside, wallowing in mud puddles, climbing trees and fences, playing soldiers and pirates and Star Trek (I was always Spock). We fenced and wrestled and rode our bikes in places bikes were never meant to go.

My mother, like many other mothers out there, wanted a little girl that she could dress up in pretty clothes and show off. It's true that I was a cute little thing, all big blue eyes and auburn curls, and I looked absolutely darling in the little outfits she got me. So it was understandably quite frustrating for her when I wanted to go outside and frolic with my friend in the nice new clothes she'd bought me. Once she bought me a pretty white dress with lace and frills and a lovely lace collar. I promptly went outside, tried to climb over a fence, and remained there, red-faced, shrieking and kicking, hanging by the skirt of the dress which had gotten caught on the post. My father had to come get me down, trying very hard not to laugh in the process.

After that, my mother dressed me in overalls for when I played outside.

The thing is, I wasn't what you might call a "typical" tomboy. I liked the pretty dresses my mother bought me. I enjoyed looking nice for parties, although because I was a very introverted child I generally found the parties overwhelming. I liked having ribbons in my hair, and I used to colour my fingernails with my markers so that I would have "nail polish" on. I didn't ardently desire to be a boy, except for those times when people would tell me I couldn't do or have something that was "only for boys."

My mother and I didn't truly need to compromise, the way I hear some mothers feel they have compromise with their tomboyish girls. Instead, my mother got to know me for who I was, and when I was little she never once told me I couldn't do something because I was a girl. (That tune changed when I was a teenager, but when I was a little girl? The words never crossed her lips.) My mother realised that it wasn't realistic to want me to be demure and "proper" all the time, and she worked with that. She wanted me to have fun, to be happy, and if that mean dressing me in overalls half the time or more, then so be it.

As I grew older, I found myself at odds with most girls my age. I didn't own any Barbies until I was 10, and someone gave me a couple for my birthday. I didn't really know how to "play Barbies," so my Barbies ended up going on adventures and climbing imaginary volcanoes made out of my bedclothes and a few judiciously placed chairs. There was no pink in my room (except for my bedspread, which my mother bought for me when I got my "big girl bed" and which I kept until I was nearly twenty), because pink was a "girl colour," and I knew I wasn't really like other girls. I was a girl in essence, but not especially on the surface. I had no interest in boys, which other girls seemed to develop starting as early as eight years old. I didn't understand the fascination with the New Kids on the Block (yes, that was the boy band that was incredibly popular when I was twelve, which should give you an idea of my age), and I thought makeup was pretty ridiculous.

I've never bothered to dissect my feelings about being a girl when I was young. I figure it's equal parts gender identity and internalised misogyny, with some other issues thrown in for good measure. We're constantly being told that being a woman is less desirable than being a man. Therefore anything that's associated with womanhood is automatically inferior. I refused for years to have anything to do with the colour pink. From the age of about seven to the age of twenty-five, actually, when a friend finally convinced me to buy a hot pink sleeveless top for an outfit, which turned out to look pretty damned fabulous on me.

Slowly I became more attuned to the underlying misogyny in so many of the messages I had internalised, and began to consciously examine my motivations for "disliking" things. I read a lot of articles that, for instance, pointed out how ridiculous it was to look down on romance novels. A genre of fiction written primarily by women for women? It must be inferior! Never mind that it has about the same percentage of good and bad writers as any other kind of fiction. But we've been brainwashed to think of those novels as being "trash."

I digress.

The point is that, in all these years, I've never been pushed so hard to review all my opinions about "girly" things than in the past few months since Bean has started expressing more and more interest in things that would be considered "girlish." Barbies? Check. Pink, purple and sparkly Check. Skirts and tights and Tinkerbell? Check. Check, check, check.

So what's my role as a parent? Or step-parent, in my case? All this stuff makes Bean happy, and since I want him to be a happy, well-adjusted kid, totally comfortable with who he is, then I need to make sure that my own hang-ups don't rub off on him. Just because I grew up thinking pink was undesirable doesn't mean I should pass that along to him. Much like my mother had to learn who I was and work with the side of me that loved climbing trees and playing with swords as well as the side of me that liked to pretend I was a princess (because I totally wanted to be a princess and have a pony of my very own), I am getting to know every side of Bean's personality.

Therefore I have come to reconcile myself entirely with pink in all its glorious shades and nuances. From bubble gum to Barbie to electric pink, I now embrace the colour with every ounce of my being. I may not have played Barbies when I was little, but if Bean wants me to play with him? Then I will happily join him on the floor with every single Barbie at my disposal to let him stretch his imagination as far as it will go.

The great thing about children is that they let you be a child again yourself every so often, and now I get the added joy of having a second childhood filled with pink and purple and sparkles and fairy wings. Every day I'm at home I can look forward to a new discovery.

(Yes, that's me when I was about Bean's age. It's the only photo I have at my disposal, but my mother has 24 albums' worth. :P)

About Anonymity

I'm not exactly anonymous. I've always had a public persona on the internet, and I doubt this will change.

That being said, for the purposes of this blog, I'm going to keep quiet on the subject of names of people and places and anything that might make my family readily identifiable. After all, my life is no longer only my own, which used to be the case. I owe it to Bean and my girlfriend to protect their privacy. As such, I will be using nicknames and posting photographs with the faces blurred out or positioned in such a way that they can't be seen/recognised.

Anyone who knows me who comes across this blog will recognise the players instantly. I am not trying to hide who we are—our friends and family know us, after all, and there is no shame here. What I am trying to do is to protect us as much as I can from whatever the internet might throw in our direction.

I hope that all my readers (if readers there end up being!) will understand and respect this.

Thank you.

Here be brightly coloured dragons...

Post #1.

I'm not sure what kind of blog this will turn out to be. I've blogged before, mostly on LiveJournal, but mostly as a kind of personal journal with a small audience. This will, I think, be rather different. I'm starting late, but I see it a little as a way to chronicle the biggest change(s) in my life and how that goes.

To sum up what's happened since last April: my girlfriend of a year (we've known each other for ten years but only been dating for one) moved in with her three-year-old son, hereafter known as Bean. (I have yet to figure out a nickname for my girlfriend. Stay tuned. :P) I work for the RCMP as a telecoms operator, which means shift work, and recently I got transferred to a different city nearby. So for now I'm commuting back and forth for 4-5 days at a time between shifts.

So I've dived headfirst into being the "co-parent" (as my girlfriend puts it), of an extremely high-energy three-and-a-half-year-old boy, who also happens to be gender nonconforming. Or maybe more gender creative—that term seems to fit him better. Bean has two speed settings: fast and asleep; he also has two volume settings: loud and asleep. He loves trains and Iron Man and playing with rocks. He also loves princesses and fairies and pink and purple clothes and all things sparkly. He wears skirts and tights and hair clips as well as his regular "boy" clothes and plays with Barbies and throws rocks in the water and digs in the dirt. Basically, he's a kid.

I don't know if anyone will read this. I don't know if I'll be able to keep up with posting. I don't know what I'm going to put in here, except for the fact that it's going to be about my own experience with all of this. I'm not an expert, and goodness knows I am riddled with my own fair share of neuroses. Up until now, I've been terrible at relationships and not all that good with small children. I've had plenty of other things happen in my life that I will likely end up discussing here as well, because they are important to who I am.

In short, this is uncharted territory for me. Here be brightly coloured, gender nonconforming dragons. ;)

Also, eventually I hope to clean up the look of this blog. I am terrible with all things html and other coding, so bear with me while I muddle my way through the beginnings of this.