the blues

Calum's watching Blue's Clues, one of his all-time favourite kids' shows and I've kinda got the blues today so it seems fitting.

I've spent a lot of time today feeling absolutely disgusted with the US election results. I honestly just can't understand why so many Americans voted for that guy. It's just wrong and bad on so many levels. I'll leave it at that.

I've also been pretty frustrated trying to sort through my various options right now.

1) stay home for a few more years until Calum's in school full time - this would make it easier for the kids because I'll be available to drive them to and from school, bus stop, etc and is what I think is the right thing for Calum, but would not help me to feel more of a sense of purpose and of intellectual stimulation

2) get a job and put Calum in daycare - most if not all of the money I earn would go toward said day care. I would have to come up with solutions for what to do with the kids during school holidays and have to call in sick every time they get sick (with school and daycare being the petri dish of germs that they are, that happens pretty often). And I would have to send Calum to daycare, which is something I don't want to do. I think he deserves to have the benefits of not spending so much of his waking time in an institutional setting.

3) go to school part time and then full time once Calum is in school. But, how would I pay for this? I can't get a student loan because Jeff earns too much (see yesterday's post). If I get a job to help pay for school, after paying for daycare I wouldn't have much money for school (see above). If we get rid of our car we would have enough money to pay for the school but no way of getting kids to bus stop, preschool, and regular school should the school bus service be cancelled (right now it is run by a parent's group, I pay $3 a ride for Megan to take the bus, and is steadily losing money due to not enough riders to break even). Do I really want to spend hours of my life on public transit conveying my kids back and forth to these various things so that I can take a couple of classes? I think not.

So then I come back to 1) maybe I should just stop being so impatient and wait for the kids to be older and go to school then. But I want to go NOW. I'm back to the usual dilemma between wanting to do the best for my kids and wanting to do the best for myself, and not being able to figure out how to accomplish both things at the same time. Their needs at this stage in their lives are so pressing, and I know mine can wait. I just won't short change them - they are counting on me. Hopefully I can figure something out.

Anyway I could have sat around all day feeling depressed about this like I did yesterday, but luckily today was Wednesday and Jeff and I have instituted a semi-regular lunch date on Wednesdays. There are barely any visitor parking spots at the big EA office where the cafeteria and game library are, so I park at Jeff's other office and we usually take the shuttle over to the main office, have lunch there, get some new games from the library and then walk back to his office. It's about a 25 minute walk between the two buildings and we've been really lucky with the weather on Wednesdays lately. There's nothing like a brisk walk on a crisp, sunny fall day! And it gives us a chance to actually talk together about life, the universe and everything without constant kid interruptions. And to make today even more fun, yesterday EA released a new role playing (video) game, The Lord of the Rings: The Third Age and we picked up a copy at the EA store while we were at the main office. So far it looks pretty promising.

I think I'm going to go get the house in order and try to get an early night. No doubt part of my low-ness today was due to not getting enough sleep last night - I stayed up too late checking the Globe and Mail website for election results. (I couldn't watch the TV coverage because I just can't stand to look at GWB's smirking face). (Oh wait, I said I wasn't going to say any more about that!!)