A Question of Sanity

Just so I can remember how witty my 3 year old is....

Sophie asks me for a package of Dora fruit snacks and I give them to her. A few minutes later she comes up to me with another pack and asks me to open them. I start to, and then I say "Hey, you just had one of these!" She says "No, I didn't just have one Mummy. That is in your imagination." I let her have the fruit snacks.

You may have seen this one on facebook... Sophie has been driving me crazy and at one point I say "Sophie, I am at the end of my rope!" She looks me up and down and says "But you don't even have a rope." That totally made me laugh. You can not stay mad at that child.

Soccer started a few weeks ago. Her first game was a rain out and she stood outside saying "Please stop raining, please stop raining!" Her second game was the day of the May blizzard. The following week was very nice and I said "Well, it looks like you will be playing soccer tonight." Sophie says "Really? Oh, thank you, Mummy, thank you! I love you!" She then kissed me on the hand and gave me a hug.

Sophie is sitting (well, feet were on the floor, tummy was on the couch) playing the computer and Taylor leans over to see what she is doing. Sophie yells "Taylor! Move! You are in my light!"

It's the day of Sophie's playschool Spring Tea and she is sitting on the bathroom counter while I brush her hair. She is looking in the mirror and saying "I am so pretty. Pretty, pretty Sophie." I finish her hair and she says "Oh, Mummy, thank you...you have made me so beautiful!"

She's very fond of the thank you's, my Sophie is.

I realize I threw a whole lot of stuff out there on fb and on here and elsewhere and then left you hanging. I need to update what is going on and I just can't do it here. I know that if William came across this blog, which he hasn't read in forever and I assume he believes I no longer use it, he would be pretty upset with that last post. He has never been a fan of me putting our issues on display. So I do have a lot to say, and I find I am spending my days talking to out loud to myself trying to work my own issues out. Just to let you know quickly, we talked. And we talked. And we talked some more. Things right now are okay. When I am with him, things are good. When he is at work though... I wonder and I question and I am a little lost. I question what will happen. I am 95% sure nothing will happen when he is in Australia, but if you had asked me the day before I found out I would have said I was it wasn't even a question. I had complete and total faith in him. Not in her, never in her, but in him? Never, ever would it have entered my head that he would do anything. Now that I know that the thought was in his head I will wonder. Those 10 days that he is gone are going to be the worst 10 days of my life.

So...I'll send those of you who want to know a message through fb or email and let you know where the story is going to be.

When I read that second to last paragraph about William not telling his family he was coming to Australia I feel so fucking stupid. Of course he didn't tell them! He had no plans on seeing them...he was going to spend the whole time with HER. Oh fuck, I want to kill him. All the lies he has been telling me for months. I even sort of joked one night driving home from work about how I was worried about what would happen between them and he said "Oh, Emma, you don't need to worry about that." And I said I knew I didn't have to worry about him but I worried about her. I had such faith in him. No matter what we went through, I never, ever thought he would cheat on me. I sent her a message on facebook and I said that. I told her I loved him. I said he may leave me, but be sure he will never leave our girls for you. I can't believe the messages I read between the two of them. Talking about getting together a few times a year until the girls are old enough to make a decision about what they want. Fucking bastard. Fucking, fucking bastard. God, I hate him. And I love him, and I think that is even worse.

Do you recall last January when I wrote about how William had found the daughter he had never met before on facebook? They've had a bit of a rocky relationship in the year they have known each other. She was, after the first few weeks, pretty bitter. He had a lot of blame thrown his way. Totally understandable but a part of me wanted to email her and say "Hey, you are 25 years old. Grow up. The fact that he never knew you was YOUR MOTHER'S choice. He was 17, a total mess and is now 43 and still a bit of a mess. He doesn't need you blaming him for a mistake that he has tried to rectify for years." But I didn't. After all, he's a grown man and can fight his own battles. They didn't talk for a quite a while and then the mother found him on facebook and they started talking. She talked to Michaela, and had her contact William again. So for the last few months they have been in regular contact. She told him she was getting married, and asked him to come to the wedding.

Well, it was a no go. He's at a new job, with not enough earned vacation days yet. We don't have the money for a flight to Australia. She was disappointed. He felt he was letting her down. We wondered if we could somehow swing it.

And somehow we did. On February 17th, William leaves for Melbourne. She is getting married on the 27th and he returns home the next day.

I am not entirely happy about this. A part of me thinks he is being set up for disappointment. What if she doesn't like him? What if her step father raises a fuss? Apparently neither he nor the 2 younger siblings are very happy about this. I asked him if it would not be better to go at a later time when she is not busy doing last minute wedding preperations but he says she wants him at the wedding. And so he will go. I hope it is worth it.

Now I am shopping for it. We are going to get an Irish wedding blessings plate and a Canadian Olympic sweater for her little boy. There are 16 nieces and nephews to buy a little something for. I have found some cute Canada shirts for 3 of the girls, and have some baby clothes for the newborn twins, but still have much more to get!

Oh, and get this...he's not telling his mum or sisters that he is coming! I made some comment on facebook about his trip to Australia and he got a wee bit annoyed with me. "I told you that, Emma, that I was going to surprise them. It was the very first thing I said!" Um, no actually, it wasn't. I would remember that because I would have said "What the feck are you thinking! That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard!" Honestly! Anyway, I am pretty sure his one sister saw it, or at the very least her son said something. She called here that very night and she never, every calls us. She didn't ask and he didn't volunteer it. He was talking to the nephew on facebook the other night and he did ask William if he was coming, to which he said yes, but it was meant to be a surprise. He says he didn't tell anyone, but we are pretty sure they know!

Anyway, he's looking forward to the trip and I am not looking forward to it. Bloody Teacher's Convention is 2 days the week he is gone, I'll be driven demented with no evening time Daddy on duty!

Last night I was reading through old blog posts and I came across one with conversations my girls have. I had totally forgotten about some of them, and so tonight when Sophie had this conversation with her dad, I realized I had better quickly get on the computer. Oh alirght, I was already on it.

Sophie: "I'm scratchy!" She runs over to William and says "Itch me!"

William scratches her (don't you love how she mixes up scratch and itch!?) and she says "No not there!"

"Where?" says William.

"Here!" She points to a spot on her lower back "Itch me there!"

"No, no...here" Points to another spot. "Now here."

"Aaaahhhhh."

Scratch all gone.

This past Friday my friend Shelley and I took the girls to the Festival of Trees. Taylor was performing with her school's Grade 9 band so we watched her and then explored the festival.

Shelley was showing Saoirse a set of small statues of Mary, Joseph and the newborn Jesus. She says to Saoirse "Joseph was Jesus' daddy" and Saoirse says "Actually, he was Jesus' stepdad." This made us laugh quite loudly. As I have said many times before we are not very religious. In fact Saoirse has been to church a grand total of once...at her baptism. I know, it is awful. Since she has started Kindergarten she has really embraced the whole religion aspect of school. She loves the prayers, the songs, the stories. Almost every day she brings up God (as an example today she and Sophie were arguing and I asked if they realized who was watching them. It's December and I play the Santa card an awful lot. She replies "God?") Anyway, I am assuming that in school they were told something along the lines of God being the father of Jesus but that he was raised by Joseph. Since we have the same sort of thing in our own family (without the whole immaculate conception deal) I'm guessing she just took it to mean that Jesus has a stepdad, just like Liam and Taylor do.

(Jesus, Mary and the stepdad)


We had a great time at the Festival of Trees and I will be sure to pull the girls out of school on the last Friday of every November so that we can enjoy ourselves without the mad rush of people on the weekend!

A Stampin' Up tree. Seriously! I was in envy.

The Festival of Trees is a fundraiser for our local childrens hospital, the Stollery. They had an area where you could mask up, operate on a teddy bear, see a doll in an incubator, get a cast on your finger and so on and so on. The girls loved it.

com/_sCOifdlWrMw/SxYIMqw-GiI/AAAAAAAABOc/91-8bhBP34k/s1600-h/017.JPG"> Taylor, Sophie, Shelley and Saoirse.

A gingerbread castle. I believe this one won the award in the non professional category.

There are more pictures on facebook of course. Or there will be once I post them.

Yeah, I no I never blog anymore so it's probably a bit nervy of me to ask those of you who may see me show up in your reader to to pop on over to my Christmas Ornament Exchange blog and ask you to join in on this fun and exciting swap.

Come on. You know you love Christams. You know you love ornaments from somewhere other than your hometown. Join my swap!

In point form because I really don't want to rehash the misery of this summer in full on detail....

-William working minimum hours for last few months, only 2 hours some days. Paycheques reflecting this. Any hopes of a weekend or two away are fading fast.

-Saoirse hospitalized with asthma and pneumonia for 4 days. We both miss work, I spend evenings and nights, William does the day shift. Teenagers do nothing to help out in house.

-Receive letter from Immigration Canada stating that William and I have to attend an interview for his permanent residency on August 19. Great! We have to pay a further fee of $440 for "right to residency." What the fuck???

-William loses job. Not entitled to EI (Employment Insurance for you non Canadians) as he is not yet a permanent resident. However, he has been paying into EI for 2 years and 2 months, so seriously...what the fuck???

-William has job interview with temp agency. They would like to place him in 2 positions. Great! They want a copy of his work visa. Not great....it expired in May and Immigration Canada is only up to May 1, not May 20th in their processing. A phone call to Immigration Canada is placed and they say he can change jobs even though he is in between visas but they will not send anything saying that and they have no number for potential employers to call and get that information themselves. Jobs go bye bye.

-Go to a jewelery party at a friend's. I don't place an order of course, due to the non working partner and all that. The "friend" that told me a big whopper of a lie (never blogged about it, but I did call her out on facebook) comes in and totally ignores me. Yes, I guess that friendship is completely over. Was surprised to discover that it actually made me a bit sad. I've known we were heading to the end of our friendship for about 2 years.

- It's Sophie's birthday! Yay! But no party, everybody and their dog is out of town. Poor Sophie. We did have cake, she did get presents, but did she have any friends there? No. Not that she cares, but it makes the birthday scrapbook page look a little pathetic.

-I called in sick to work last Sunday. The next day my supervisor calls me. This is our conversation. Her: "Why did you call in sick?" Me, knowing she is not allowed to ask this: "Because I was sick." Her: "Well, it looks a little suspicious since you had a shift swap on Friday, an LOA (leave of absence) on Saturday and then call in sick on Sunday." Me, in total shock: "I was sick!" Once off the phone, I was really pissed off. About 5 minutes later I called her back, told her that I was totally offended by her asking me that when I did not take calling in sick lightly as I would lose my shift differntial and with William not working I count on that extra money. She says "Well, remember when you had all that time off last year and Roy (my old boss) was really upset with you?" And I say "You mean the 5 weeks I had bronchitis?" For which I had 2 doctor's notes! I have no idea why she brought that up, it is totally a moot point. Later that night, I find out from a co-worker that she had her office door open when she called me and 2 other co workers overheard her! Total breach of confidentiality there. I am still pissed off about it when I go into work on Wednesday and decide to speak with our boss. She does say it seemed a little odd about the shift swap, the LOA and then a sick day. I say it may have been odd had I been the one who requested it (which I was not!). It's not like I went from working the evening shift to a day shift, took off out of town on Friday night, had my LOA on Saturday and then called in Sunday pretending to be sick, which is what I am assuming they were thinking. Anyway, she said that my supervisor is not allowed to ask why I was sick, and that she will talk to her about shutting her office door. I so knew this one would be longer than point form, almost a week later I am still pissed off.


So that's been my summer so far. The weather has been awful, I think we have had about 2 weeks of nice temperatues, a week of hot, and the rest has been below average. I have not enjoyed it at all. William had another job interview on Thursday, she said she would love to have him work for the company and it would be about 2 weeks or so. I am really hoping he gets this because September is upon us and that means Catholic school fees X 3, playschool fees, indoor soccer for Liam and dance for Taylor and Saoirse. We are also due to go to Calgary in September as Liam is in intercities from the outdoor soccer season. It never ends does it? Luckily my mum has bought each of the kids an outfit or two and bought Liam and Taylor's school supplies. I have mostly finished my shopping for the kids, we did shoes and some clothing today and on Monday Old Navy is getting a phone call from me to complain about their false advertising. If it says ALL you can not then say "select styles". Bastards.

So how's your summer been?

After 2 days of pure living hell with the teenage Liam I am suffering from a severe lack of parental confidence. So it was quite nice to come across this conversation I had with Sophie a couple of weeks ago that I meant to blog but never got around to (of course).

Sophie: I love you, Mummy.

Me: I love you too, Sophie.

S: I love you spaghetti!

M: I love you more than spaghetti!

S: I love you more than Liam!

M: Don't you love Liam?

S: I just like him. Liam's the best brother. But Mummy...you are the BEST mummy ever.

I doubt she'll be saying it when she is 13 (although Taylor did tell me I'm a pretty good mum...but not as good as Dana's mum (I have to say I totally agree...Dana's mum rocks) but I will take it with all happiness and remind myself of it often when she is of the oft dreaded (with reason!) teenage years.


You'd think I would put a picture of her and I here, wouldn't you? Alas, there are none. I am the picture taker in this house, and when I'm not taking them I avoid the camera. I know. They will hard pressed to do a power point of me when I am dead. (I'm still freaking about death...I didn't even blog about the school teacher who died of cancer at the age of 46. 700 people at her funeral, it was amazing. And tons of pictures of her in the powerpoint! And on the same day Liam's old soccer coach died. Of cancer. Bloody cancer.)

Saoirse and Sophie tend to throw all the clean laundry out of it's basket (rarely a laundry basket, usually just a large rubbermaid container) and turn it into a boat. They did this this morning and both girls climbed inside, along with assorted stuffed animals.

Sophie: You're my best sister, Saoirse.

Saoirse, squeezing Sophie's cheeks: You're my best friend, sweet cheeks.

Really? Are they not the freaking sweetest things ever?

Nevermind that Sophie later tried to bite Saoirse's thigh as they fought during a rousing game of musical chairs- minus the music.

You know how I love and adore squishytushy? And I have publicly wondered why she is not so much more popular because she is the freaking funniest blogger EVER? No offense to any of you other funny bloggers, but in my ever so humble opinion she is one of the best.

Recently, she attended a wedding in one of the Carolinas. I want to say South. I'm pretty sure it was South. This post about day one of the trip to South? Carolina is freaking hilarious. In a horribly awful sort of way. I don't want to give anything away, you must go read it for yourself.

I almost hate to share the hidden gem that is squishytushy, but for you all must find out what you have been missing. And if you don't like her? Well, there is something seriously wrong with you.

Oh, and if you want to find out who Rodney is you must read the previous post. Also very funny. In fact, why don't you just start at the beginning and read her entire archive? You won't be sorry.

I always say that my worst fear would be losing one of my children. I am beginning to wonder if I should say that my worst fear would actually be my own death. Not for my own loss, but because I wonder what my children would go through if I died. I think about this quite often (morbid?), and even had a discussion about it with William and Taylor last week.

A few weeks ago I found out that one of our playschool mums has cancer. Last week, I found out it was stage 4- maybe stage 5- and that she had been given 2-4 months, and up to a year if she does chemo. I don't know her, her daughter is in the morning class and Saoirse is in the afternoon, but I feel for her. I feel for her husband and her 2 daughters, one 4 and one 7. I feel for her family and friends- one who had just had her mother in law go missing only to be found 3 days later dead.

Not two months ago, she was seemingly healthy. She attended our general playschool meeting on February 10, with plans to go to yoga afterwards. Within one month she was unable to pick her daughter up from school.

What sort of horrible disease is this? How can someone go from vibrant and healthy to dying within in the course of 4 weeks? I know it can happen, but it so hard to believe, to accept. Back when Taylor attended this same playschool, 9 years ago, one of the dads was diagnosed with stomach cancer. He was diagnosed in February and was dead by the end of April.

I consider myself lucky that in my family, I have had only had one relative in my entire life have cancer- and that was my great grandmother, who was at the time in her 70s. This does not mean that I have not been touched by cancer, I don't think there is anyone who can claim that. My best childhood friend lost her mother 5 weeks after her twins were born 2 years ago. An acquaintance survived breast cancer a few years ago. A friend's daughter was diagnosed with leukemia when she was 18 months old. I read the blogs of mothers who have a child with cancer, the blogs of women who have lost their sister, their parent, their very best friend. Every single one of these people have touched me, have made me cry for their loss, have made me appreciate my family.

With this playschool mother I find myself wondering "What would happen if...?" What would happen if I was that sick? If I was told I would die? Who would take care of my children? Oh, I know that William would take good care of them but I worry about the little things...who would make sure the girls faces were clean before they went to school? Who would veto Saoirse's choice of a black and pink shirt with a yellow skirt and brown, pink and blue striped tights on a achool day? Who would make sure that the laundry was washed correctly? I see what happens to my house after I have worked the weekend, what in the world would happen if I wasn't there.

I am sure that they would get it all together, that eventually my teenagers would step up and grow up and lend a hand. I know my mother would be there, that I have at least 4 or 5 incredible friends who would help William with the girls, with housework, with whatever they needed.

And then there is the big question, the question that keeps me awake at night, wondering what I would do? Wondering what other people would do? What would I do if I was told that I was terminally ill but that I could increase my life expectancy by up 8-10 months if I did chemo? Would I do it? I have always thought that I would not. That I would do my best to enjoy my last few months with my family without going through the rigors of chemo.

But now? Now I don't know. Wouldn't I want another 8 months with my children even if I was extremely ill? If I chose not to have chemo would my children one day say "Why should I fight? My mum didn't" if they were confronted with a battle of their own? Or would it be worse to put them through that battle? I just don't know.

But every night I wonder.

At lunch break today Taylor and 4 of her girlfriends stayed indoors instead of going outside as they are requested to do if the weather is above -23. I know. Harsh isn't it? You people who don't get below freezing have it really good. Snow days when there is barely any snow on the ground, barely ever (if ever!) getting below freezing. After 6 months of winter, I am very envious. And we had 15cm of snow yesterday!

Anyways, a boy from her grade saw them and yelled out to one of the teachers "Hey! Mr. B! Why are you making me go outside when these girls are all sitting in the corner?" God, boys. Are they ever any good?

So the girls were sent outside after being issued a punishment requiring them to write a two page essay on the importance of going outside.

I am not the hugest fan of this teacher, so told Taylor not to take it to seriously. She took me at my word and wrote what I found to be a rather amusing essay, even if it is full of run on sentences and no structure. Hmmm...much like her mother's blog. Here, in full is her essay. Please note, that when it comes to proper school work she does write correctly!
Why It’s Important to Go Outside
There are many reasons why people should go outside. I can list at least five right now. Number five on my list is that you (her teacher) would probably rather be playing sports (he's the head of the soccer academy.) than reading this. The fourth reason is because fresh air is good for the soul. Three, the body needs exercise which you usually get from going outside. Almost last, the second reason is to give teachers a break from students and the noise they make while indoors. Last, but not least, the number one reason is that you never know when someone’s going to tell on you, like certain fourteen year old boys. I thought it would be interesting also to put why it’s good not to go outside. The reason for this is that I’m sick, and I’m just starting to get better. I didn’t want to outside because, even though I know it’s not true, I believe the cold makes you sicker, especially if you are sick beforehand. Plus the interacting of many students, some of whom are sick, is not good, and when they all go outside, its not good because you risk the chance of getting sicker, at least sicker than you already were. I also believe that writing this essay is a bad idea, as it prevented me from going outside and enjoying some fresh air like I would have if I hadn’t had to write it. Then again, I had to walk over to my friend’s house so that I could print this,(crappy non working expensive printer! she didn't actually walk to her friend's, I just emailed it.) so this was very good for me and my health. In conclusion, I would just like to state that this has been an interesting learning experience, and that it probably won’t happen again as the weather is supposed to get much warmer.

This essay was done (and completed) by Taylor W. 8C.


She totally contradicts herself in this but I appreciate her attempt at humour.

It's been a while. A month? Maybe two? I don't even really know. "Where have you been? What have you been doing?" you may ask. Or you may not. But, of course, I shall tell you whether you care to hear or not. Where have I been? Here. I have no life, I have been here. In front of my computer quite often, in fact. Doing what? It certainly hasn't been blogging, or even reading blogs. Well, I am still obsessed with facebook, and am getting back into twitter. Plurk? Well, I couldn't really give a flying fagoozy about plurk. I don't like that karma counting shit. Karma on plurk is rather like who sits at the cool table in high school. It all comes back to high school for me, people. And one does not like to go to places that remind one of not so fondly recalled days.

Anywho, now that I have sewed forth my regular "I've been gone from blogging" crap I shall truly enlighten you (not so much) with how very fascinating (read: uninspiring) my life has been for the past few months.

*We have had two birthdays. Liam turned 13 and 16 days later Taylor turned 14. As my daughter gets older I find myself so fascinated by her. She is tall and thin and oh so smart (but can not explain why she dropped from a 92 to an 80 in French) and she still has the your-mother-is-going-to-give-you-away-to-the-Hutterites attitude that she has had since she was approximately 9 months old. And she is so amazingly self confident. Where does this come from? Not I, that is for certain. She tries out for sports teams and singing contests, not worrying whether she will make it or not. I never tried out for anything for fear of failure, not even soccer when the teacher who was coaching the team asked me to try out. So she fascinates me. Polar opposites, her and I. And as she ages, we are getting along better. I like her. I couldn't always say that.

And Liam is Liam. He's 13. Who the hell likes 13 year olds? How many times can one tell a teenage boy to pull up his pants and brush his teeth so-I-don't-waste-$7000-on-braces-for-nothing before one starts banging one's head against the wall?

Why must I keep referring to myself as 'one'?

*There was recently a murder at a bar 2 blocks away from my house. I have complained about this bar to the city before, that due to the smoking bylaw drunk old men stand outside the doors at 4 pm and catcall to teen girls walking to the store and parents picking their children up from the daycare right next door. So when I called my city councillor's office the Monday after the murder, Doug, the fella in the office said "I've been expecting your call." So finally I am not the only one calling and complaining about this bar. In April there is a community league meeting that city representaitves will attend and it is my hope that the bar will end up shut down. When you can't send your teens up the road on their own, there's a pretty big problem. I had way more to say about that once upon a time, but who wanted to open the blog and write about it? Now it just sounds lame, but I can't be arsed to delete.

*We have so far in this New Year, experienced financial woes like never before. Thank God we have no credit card debt because we would be seriously fucked. As it is, I have been receiving notifications from my 3 utility companies with the dreaded "PAY NOW!" in big black letters. Christmas just killed us, normally I spend January catching up but here it is the middle of March and I am only now seeing the light at the end of the bills. It was so bad that when I suggested to William that maybe I should get a full time job he didn't even say "No way, not a chance, I'm not having strangers looking after my girls!" He said "Maybe that would be a good idea." ACK! Friday he gets his paycheque and he calls me and says that maybe I do need to look into that full time job. His paycheque is hideously small. Disgusting. He goes into work and pretty much says to them "I absolutely can not support my family on this, I'm going to have to look for another job." And so they offered him a $12 an hour raise. This is going to make a huge difference to us. They even gave him a cheque today that was a week's retro pay. Things are definitely looking up. It even makes the fact that my Chil.d T@x Bene.fit is going down by $350 a month not look so bad.

*And my two little ones? They are a post in themselves. And one day? I'm going to have to post about them. Until then, I am totally missing How I Met Your Mother.

So privacy and I? We don't get on. It's too much work going through comments and searching for email addresses and then typing them up.

Jeez, I really am a lazy fecker. I'd rather be playing spider solitaire apparently. Or watching True Blood, my new obsession, on iTunes.

Part of the reason I wanted to go private is because I discovered that a "friend" had this address and I'm really quite uncomfortable with the idea of her reading it. It's not as though I am talking about her, but I just don't want her knowing some of the things going on in my life. I also figure that sometimes I will say things that piss William off, but being private on blogger makes no difference on our home computer when it comes to him. If I'm logged in he'd see it if he bothered to read the blog. I never know when he is going to read it.

I did start a wordpress blog so I guess if I have something to say that I don't want specific people reading then I will say it over there. Although in reality by the time I am ready to write I am usually no longer pissed off (say if it's about William) and what potentially could have been quite a good post just becomes my usual shite.

Anyhoodoodledoodledoo (as my friend Squishy Tushy says, and it always makes me laugh) on to William and the daughter. The only reason I wanted this private was because I was worried that he is going to get hurt and I didn't want him getting mad at my saying so. But you know, I worry. What can you do?

So when William was 17 his ex girlfriend had a baby girl. He was, as I said, 17 and I'm pretty sure he was pretty messed up. He saw her once as a baby and again when she was 9. By this time, the ex was remarried and Michaela was being raised as his daughter. William agreed not to tell her who he was, he was just introduced as the brother of Sue's (the ex) friend.

From the moment I met William he has always talked about her, about how he would like to get in contact with her. He had done a bit of searching for both mother and daughter on the internet with no luck. And then on New Year's Day on facebook he searched for her again, spelling her last name a little bit differently than what he had been using.

And he found someone with her name, sent a message asking if she lived in Australia and had a mum named Sue and it was her. She said she thought she knew who he was. They have been messaging back and forth the past week and a bit and have talked on the phone (calling a mobile to Australia...not cheap!) She said that when her mother went to tell her about William when she was "an angry teenager" she didn't want to hear it but that she was willing to hear his side now. He told her about those days (some of you will know he was also being abused by his doctor at that time), about his childhood, about where he is today. She has a little boy, just 3 weeks older than Sophie, and she said to William that once she saw the pictures of our girls she had no doubt about being related to him. And really? Her son has the exact same blond curls that Saoirse had at 2. A different face, but you can definitely see a resemblance. She herself looks a bit like one of his sisters.

We have known that William needs to go back to Australia for this medical case and now he is very determined to get back and meet Michaela. And while I am happy for him and I support his going back both for the case and to meet her, there is a part of me that is saying "What the fuck? We can't afford this. We can't afford for you to take 3 weeks off of work, to buy a plane ticket to Australia." That is selfish of me, I know, but I just don't see our fortunes turning in the next 4 months. These next few months were to be spent saving and trying to get ahead and now that is all gone. And it frustrates me that I am upset about this. I know that this is what is best for William...to meet her, to hopefully get some answers or some closure in regards to the abuse... and I know that any positive changes in William will be good for our family. But there is a little part of me that is terrified...scared that he won't get the answers he wants from the medical board, scared that things will not work out with Michaela, scared that he won't come back. And that is silly, I know, but I can't control those feelings. I find I've been a bit off with him this week, a little bit quieter than normal, a bit distance. When he asks what is wrong I say nothing.

I just don't know how to explain it all to him.