GAH! Damn copyrights!

*sigh*
Last night I was seized by a sudden inspiration and I wrote a children's story (apparently the medium in which I write best and most efficiently is turquoise marker...who knew!). I already know some changes I want to make in it, but I like the basic structure and I am particularly enamoured of my main character. Sadly, I find that I can't use the name I wanted if I ever want to try to get this published. Know why? Because the main character's name was (is at the moment) Little Bear, and someone already used that. If I had an older kid who watched Treehouse I would have known that earlier, but at 5 months old my Little Bear doesn't watch any TV besides my Chef at Home and Battlestar Galactica, and certainly not kids' TV. But I had this funny feeling, so I Googled it, and voila!

Anywho, there it is, time to find a new name. Ah well.

In other news, I have been giving a lot of thought to my Future and What I Want to Do. Motherhood has given me a whole new outlook on this one -mostly because I've realized that I don't, in fact, want to dance, teach dance, or do anything dance-related except possibly write about dance for a living. This is a Big Deal for someone who used to think "If I'm not a member of ABT by the time I'm 19 I might as well kill myself" and subsequently tortured herself relentlessly for giving up her dance training.

It's an interesting feeling being able to finally let that go. It's like I'm standing at this huge crossroads with a dozen possible routes in front of me, and suddenly I know that I don't want to take route A, B, or C. I still don't know which route I will take, but I know for sure that it won't be any of those. This is interesting, because this time last year I was teaching my second term of DansKinetics with my own website, brochures, business plan, etc. This is annoying, because people are expecting me to teach those classes again -I keep getting calls from new clients who see my brochures (of course, now that I'm not doing it). But I can't help it...I don't wanna. I thought I was "following my bliss" when I tried that, but I think maybe I had it wrong. I'm so glad I gave it a solid try though (and I reserve the right to change my mind, although I don't think I will).

Another route that I know I won't be taking is the Masters degree in French route. I didn't think I wanted to, but it wasn't until my former honours advisor mentioned it as a possibility that I knew for sure (and not just because doing that with a 5.5 month old attached son would be pretty frigging hard). I was great at school -I mean fantastic- but I'm so not interested. This is yet another Big Deal.

Sorry this is such a rambly, unentertaining post. I've just had this on my mind for a while now. I feel guilty for thinking about it as much as I have -I guess I feel like I should be totally and wholly focused on being Little Bear's mom and should blog about that. But no, that wasn't the point of starting this blog...this blog is the "keep Mama Bear sane by reminding her she's still a person" blog, isn't it?

OK, not feeling so guilty anymore.

Next time on The Adventures of Mama Bear: Remember how I promised to post photos of our newly-organized living room and then didn't? All that is about to change!