Guilt

Ugh, I feel so incredibly guilty right now that I just have to write it out and share and hopefully that will get rid of the knots in my stomach. No I haven't murdered anyone. It seems silly when it is written out, and I guess that is the idea. Lucas missed his afterschool tennis class. There, I said it. Of course it isn't as simple as that. There was limited enrollment for this program. Lucas has wanted to learn tennis for a few years now so I was very excited when his name was drawn as one of the grade 3 participants. When shortly thereafter he was moved to grade 2 I realized that it would be a little more challenging in that he wouldn't be with his classmates both on a friend level and on a reminder to go level. First class I had made sure he knew to go to it. But he was told by someone at school that it was only for grade 3, so he came home on the bus. No problem. Second time, he was feeling unwell and came home on the bus. Hmmm. The instructor emailed me asking if Lucas had changed his mind and reminded me that there were other kids wanting his spot if he wasn't going to come. I assured him that Lucas would be there next time. Today. And he wasn't. I forgot to remind him this morning. He is 8 so it isn't all my fault. He should be able to remember these things too. I thought to call his school to ask the front desk to remind him. Huh. Writing that out makes it sound a little like helicopter parenting. But I forgot to call the office between coming up with the idea and getting to a phone so the point is moot. And now he has missed all 3 of the classes so far. Now he is going to be behind technically, when he already isn't exactly the most naturally athletic child in the world. Argh. I still feel guilty but the knots have gone away.

Thanks.

Rome, what a line of credit is for!

In this time of global economic crisis, is it irresponsible to finance family vacations on debt? Seriously, I want to know. When we came to Europe I planned to use our line of credit to do travel. This was long before any hint of sub-prime mortgages and the ensuing madness was in the public eye. Alas the move was $ignificantly more expen$ive than I thought and we maxed out the line of credit by the end of the first month. Chris and I are extremely frugal people and we have been consistently paying down that line of credit, only to blow it back up with each trip we take. This has made me feel uneasy. The line of credit was supposed to start at $0 and be payed down in between trips, not get maxed out first and then paid down enough to take the next trip. I reasoned however, that we are faced with a unique, relatively short-term opportunity living in Europe and that to sit here and do nothing would be more irresponsible. The lesser of two evils perhaps? That just happens to be the fun option too? My rationalization flies completely out the window though if one were to look at where we spent this money....the bulk of our vacation dollars the first 3 years had been spent traveling home to Canada. This is why I don't know when the next time we travel home will be. This is why we spent a bunch of borrowed money on our Swiss trip this summer, a french chalet this Christmas, and just now a 4-day trip to Rome. I think we are doing the right thing in a big-picture kind of way, but it does make me feel uneasy all the same. I really hope that in 20 years time when the boys are asking why everyone else has a nice RESP to go to university with that looking over these memories of our time here will still feel like it was all worth it.

Enough of my guilty conscience, next time I will post about what we actually DID in Rome!!!