Toronto Bound Until Tuesday

Today was my last day to get everything wrapped up for the Creative Sewing and Needlework Festival in Toronto this weekend. The alarm is set to wake me at 4:15 so that I can get out to the airport for the first flight out. It is harder on my body to get up that early and teach all day, but much easier on my girls to have one less night of Mom not there to tuck them in.

Today was also supposed to be picture day for Erin at school. We were in the process of curling the ends of her hair under with the curling iron after bringing some of it back in a ponytail when Erin was suddenly and violently ill into the bathroom sink.... so she stayed home with me. Was it the flu making a rebound in our house or was she just very aware that Mommy was heading off and had a “nervous tummy” as Nick’s mother calls it?

I always find I am more nervous in the last 24 hours as I try to remember everything I need to do or bring. I can’t exactly run home if I forget something important!! Once I am there, I love being with people.... the extrovert in me loves being out and sharing my love of needlework. Nick calls it being “ON”, kind of like the same high you get acting in a play, but I get to be myself.

Yet it is also such a wrench when Bethany burst into tears. I had been saying good night to her when she replied “See you.... when you get back and NOT in the morning!” and then began to cry in big gut-wrenching sobs. Last year at 3 1/2, her mantra was “Mommy don’t go to ‘Ronto!”

My sister, Laurie, once gave me a wonderful book called “A Question of Balance” by Judith Pierce Rosenberg which profiled artists and writers to see how they had balanced Motherhood and the professions. It is going with me on the plane instead of a new novel to read because I remember loving it so much when she first gave it to me as I struggled to start my freelance business from home with a newborn underfoot.

I won’t be blogging until at least Tuesday afternoon... so until then, the Dragon will be keeping her musings to herself and her journal. May your dreams be inspiring!