Friday, November 13, 2009

Rant, rant, rant

I seem to cry at the drop of a hat these days....t.v commercials, newspaper articles, personal worries and concerns all seem to reduce me to quiet tears.  I'm not sure why  - although I have some ideas.

Still, tonight what I feel most of all is frustration and anger.  Who actually knows, maybe H1N1 will turn out to be, please, please, please, much ado about nothing - except for those poor, grieving families who have lost love ones to date because of this flu strain.  I do know that the first chance I had, my boys were vaccinated - and Winston will go back next week for his second shot as he is under three and Canada has to date decided that all children under 3 years should receive two half doses, 21 days apart. 

As for those who say the chances are minimal that they will contract the virus, or that if they do it will most likely be mild, I say that is not a chance I am willing to take.  I sat, slept, ate and despaired next to Winston's hospital crib for a week last winter while he struggled to breathe...I awoke nightly to the urgent rustling of nurses arriving to clear his breathing passages and get his heart rate stabilized because the poor baby could not breathe on his own without help and his heart would start to flag...I sat there pumping milk that he would not ever drink because he refused all fluid and solids day after day as his fever climbed, his condition worsened.  And this nightmare was caused from simple complications due to a common cold virus.   A cold.  The frickin' common cold and my baby was in the children's hospital for a week under constant care, wires and tubes snaking in and out, over and under his little body.  So when a vaccine to help prevent H1N1 came along you better believe I was not taking any chances.

I mean, what are the odds here in North America that any of our children will actually come in contact with, or contract, many of the diseases for which they are routinely vaccinated?  Slim to none.  And why?  BECAUSE WE HAVE A PUBLIC HEALTH SYSTEM THAT VACCINATES THE VERY YOUNG WHO ARE MOST VULNERABLE.  So can someone explain to me why, in God's green earth, we would not also vaccinate our children against this virus?  Too busy with work?  I'll show you too busy with work and raise you one week of absence as you freak out in hospital next to your child as he/she labours to breathe.   Doubt they will actually get sick?  Then why teach them road safety, put bike helmets on their heads, scrutinize consumer reports on child safety seats and buy BPA free drink bottles - what are the odds they will get hit by a car/crack their head on the sidewalk/be in a car accident/have chemicals mutate their genetic codes?  And why are these chances so many parents are unwilling to take, yet a simple vaccine is just too much trouble?

And why am I so angry, so livid, so frustrated?  I don't know exactly - except on the same day that a young, healthy, beloved and reknowned scientist here in Ottawa died from H1N1, people close to me were clogging up our already over-burdened health system with their unvaccinated child (too busy to get it done, too inconvenient, too much "fear mongering") in an emergency room over  mild fever and a runny nose.  Sure, they had time to sit in emergency for hours, exposing him to a multitude of illnesses and sights a young child should not be seeing - but not enough time or interest to have headed the wisdom of the WHO, public health specialists, and governments - and simply gotten him vaccinated. 

It's like countries where people walk and then line up for days to exercise their right to vote in elections; here we act like it is a burden we must, heavy sigh and much complaining, try to get around to if we feel like it at the moment.  In far too many places people - mothers - cry out for public health services, vaccines etc., to ensure the health and saftey of their children;  here we toss our heads and bemoan the inconvenience or worse simply ignore the medical advice.  Is this what we have become, we the privileged of the world?  A population made up of those who simply will not take the time, the effort or the interest to be informed, to protect the young, to value the fragility of our children's lives?

So, I find I cry easily these days.  Not for long, as I hate drama and public (or private) displays of emotion.  But I cry quietly, at the oddest things, at the oddest times.  And under the tears is an anger new to me.

Thursday, October 29, 2009

Bad Mother

There is no way around it but to simply admit that I fall short on many fronts. 

Take Hallowe'en for example.  No home-made costumes for my kids.  Nope.  I consider it victory that a) I remembered in time to find and purchase a dinosaur costume for Topher, and b) that I could actually put my hands on a hand-me-down costume of Topher's for Winston.  Ah yes, and that 48 hours before the actual event I remembered to pick up the necessary Hallowe'en candy for the neighborhood children (who will no doubt be appropriately costumed in home-made creations that would boggle the mind) along with the much-needed milk, oranges and tylenol.

Or dinner tonight.....Cambridge is of course, yet again, gone on business and I was left to fend for myself with the boys.  So, after the-ever-capable nanny whom I love, adore and wish lived here with us forever and ever and ever and ever left for the day I changed into mommy clothes and managed to organize a dinner of barely warm left-over spaghetti, corn on the cob (don't even start with me about the 100 mile rule, this is war in my house to get any vegetable from any continent into the mouths of my boys) and oranges.  And this from someone who loves to cook. 

Then there was the small matter of my professional appearance today.  Luckily, I am currently on language training so am not expected to show up in some natty suit with heels, but still the best I could manage from the oh-so-too small pile of clean laundry (as opposed to the mountain of washing waiting to be done) was torn jeans and a long-sleeve t-shirt that was grease stained.  At least I managed to find a colourful shawl to artfully cover the grease spots....until I noticed the glob of peanut butter smashed into the cashmire.

But worst of all - and by far the worst of all is that I still have not managed to find the time to hump the boys to one of the many flu shot clinics where we would wait in line for hours and hours and hours in hopes of getting them vaccinated against H1N1.  There.  I have admitted the worst of the worst.  What with being gone from home all day long, with Cambridge gone on business, with the most mundane demands of keeping the house going, the dog water and fed (although admitedly she has taken to relying on the post-shower water in the bath for a source of water), and getting boys fed, dressed, bathed, teeth brushed, and school bag packed, keeping essential food groups in stock, bills paid, nanny happy (and believe me, a good nanny you HAVE to keep happy) I still have not found the 18 hours necessary to line up, wait and then receive the vaccination that would help ensure we by-pass the dreaded H1N1.

So this is what I will face:  a beyond believable crush of humanity on Saturday - people just like me who have not had time to pee, let alone go to one of the clinics during the working week -  with two small boys who hate crowds, just want to go home and are excited beyond belief about Hallowe'en, all waiting for 18 hours to get a sharp needle stuck into our children's arms. 

I honestly don't remember this being mentioned in any of the baby books.

Sunday, October 25, 2009

I hate it when "they" are right.

I have often been "advised" to take some time to myself, aka take better care of myself and to better attend to my own needs.  I have bristled and objected to these suggestions - who has time to be selfish with two small boys, a marriage, a household to manage and a career?

However, I am back home after 3 days away on a leadership retreat....3 days without diapers, tantrums, dinners to plan and prepare, work to attend to....no real, personal and pressing demands on my time, my moods, my emotions, my being.  I had only to shower and dress myself each morning, had only myself to feed - at the hotel breakfast buffet - had only my thoughts crowding into my head and was honestly asked by ADULTS what I thought, what my contributions might be, what my experience might add....in a word, it was amazing.

I thought I would miss my baby, Winston.  I had not before been separated from him for a night.  Topher, well, my little emotional tsunami I had been away from frequently during the second year of his life, flying back and forth across the country for work.  And my spouse, aka Cambridge, well, he'd been gone for a week before I left - and we are well used to, if not liking, frequent times apart because of his career demands.   Shockingly, however, I felt just fine.  Better than fine.  Except for the guilt I felt because I felt so fine.

And now that I am back home, with a weekend of grocery shopping, tidying, ferrying of boys to birthday parties and cookie baking under my belt, I still feel fine.  More myself, more in charge, more relaxed....damn it all, I hate it when the advice you were given turns out to be right!!!

So, note to self:  getting away from sticky peanut butter encrusted fingers for longer than the working day is a good thing.  So is floatng in a salt water pool, laughing with friends over wine in front of a fire, and rolling over to go back to sleep without first having to get up to help a small boy pee, puke, blow his nose, or nurse.   And Cambridge is brilliant at handling all of the stuff life, a dog and two small boys can throw at them for 72 hours.  Of course, it helps if you return home the same days as the cleaners have been to the house.....

Saturday, October 17, 2009

Single moms...

...have my undying admiration. 

I am often a temporary single parent as my spouse travels frequently.  This latest jaunt is for over one week.  Faced with the reality of the unquenchable needs of two small boys, the demands of a career and the minutia of making a household run even relatively smoothly, I am exhausted, depleated and undone.

My list of academy award nominees for the mother of a lifetime award include ( in no particular order):

- single parent women who manage breakfast, school-time, lunches, naps, dinner preparation, dinner, bath, bedtime, stories, endless re-bedding of youngsters as well as weekly groceries, meal planning, laundry, pickng up toys, encouraging creativity, trips to the public library, etc, etc, etc, without completely cracking under the strain of not having another adult nearby to help carry even some of the load;

- stay-at home-moms who do all of the above, although not all on their own, yet if my neighbourhood is any indication also manage to schedule play dates, swim lessons, kindermusic, renovate homes, decorate homes for each seasonal occurance, while still looking benign and beautiful;

- working outside the home moms who do all the above and still manage to excel at careers, look at sale flyers, arrange amazing parties and get manicures.

But the truth is, for me anyway, that raising kids on a day by day basis on your own has got to be the single most soul-destroying, exhausting, unrecognized and uncelebrated work of all.   While my spouse is frequently away for work and I am all too often found on my own with my "boys", at least I still have the option of calling his  cell phone to interrupt his dinner meeting so he can hear first hand from Topher how and why he is at that very moment puking into the toilet while Winston is painting his bedroom wall in feces.  Yes, we have the flu in our house.  Lovely.  But that isn't my point - my point is that I have someone to call, someone to put on speaker phone - even if he may be in a rather important scientific meeting in Philidelphia - to buy me even 50 seconds to let the dog out, wipe up some vomit and swab valiantly at some shit.   But we also have the luxuries that come with a dual income family: namely a nanny, cleaner, yard and snow maintance guy......not to mention one set of grandparents a mere 15 minute drive away. Imagine not having that.  Imagine having to do it all on your own for real, every single day.

I can't. 

So, here's to single mothers who do this daily with style, grace, humour and a commitment to non-violence.  In my eyes, you are the true heroes of this world.  

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

And so it goes....

So, it has finally happened and I am bereft at some points and yet oddly vacant at others.  Yes, the first of many fissures in the mother-child bond has occured...Winston is in his own room, in his own bed. 

No longer is my baby boy sleeping next to me.   In fact, for the first time in over two years he is neither inside me nor beside me all night long.  No longer can I either feel or hear his rustling sleepy movements.  No longer can I listen to his breathing when sleep eludes me.  No longer can I merely run my hands over my belly or glance over to the crib right next to my side of the bed to see, to know, that he is well, happy, secure and soundly sleeping.

Of course, on the other hand, no longer am I awakened at 3, 4, 5 a.m to his plaintive cries of  "Mama.  Mama.  Up. Up."  And no longer do I succumb and drag him into bed with me so that he can sleep sprawled across my chest, elbow wedged into my adam's apple, snoring contentedly while I lay there vainly trying to breathe.  For hours. 

But still, all in all, it is a loss.  And as his his nature, he took to the change easily and happily.  No fuss, no muss is Winston's motto in life.  That very first night he merely settled himself down to bed in his new room as though he had been doing it all his little life. No fears, no apprehensions - just time to sleep, thank you very much and see you in the morning Mama.  I on the other hand curled up in my own bed crying, missing my boy, my beautiful little boy who had, until then, never ever been apart from me before at night.

And so begins his long voyage through life seperate from me.  I'm sure it doesn't help that he has also decided to wean at precisely the same moment as he gained his night time autonomy.  My boy.  No fuss, no muss for him, maybe - but Mama is missing her boy right now.

Sleep tight little one.  Mama loves you.

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Put this demographic in your pipe and smoke it.

On the off chance that some major Canadian corporation is trolling the internet and blog sites looking for information, here's a little tidbit for you...

Happily married professional woman, earning more than $100k a year.  Two children under the age of four. Outsources most of her family's life - nanny, cleaning lady, people to clear snow in winter etc.  Tries to compensate by preparing home-cooked, healthy meals for family.  This includes preparing most meals "from scratch".

Add to this demographic the following scenario:  Husband is ill after 3 long days of business travel.  Children are also exhibiting signs of illness.  Dog has puked all over her bed and youngest child has chosen this medium as a pseudo-finger paint and re-decorated living room.  Dinner is pasta with home made sauce  -- not from a jar, but home made, including nursing onions slowly in olive oil, adding fresh tomatoes and minced garlic, simmering quietly before adding fresh basil from garden to ensure no pesticides.  At the same time, dinner for tomorrow night is being prepared in anticipation of coming home from work to face three ill males and no time to do anything other than administer hugs, kisses and mix a half-assed martini.  Dinner for this next evening was to be beef pot pie - using left over cross rib roast, shallots, organic carrots, beef stock, dried mushrooms and ...wait for it....frozen peas purchased on the fly.  Said frozen peas were a generic brand, in a "re-sealable bag". 

Now, include in the above demographic that the aforementioned female possesses two graduate degrees.  Re-sealable is not supposed to be difficult.  BUT, should you chose to make "re-sealable" mean, "seemingly re-seable if all the gods are on your side" until the bag is returned, upside down in the freeze,r only to spill out all over the freezer and kitchen floor at 8 o'clock at night when, quite frankly, I have next to no patience, well, then screw you and your product. 

If you want brand loyalty, think about your client.  I am officially done and dusted with Canada's favorite generic brand and will from now on shell out the extra 50 cents for a company that will ensure a bag is actually re-sealable without an engineering degree.

Working women unite.  End the tyranny of unre-sealable bags.

Saturday, September 26, 2009

Family is a mystery to me

Families are complex things. I know this - my own family is a mess of complexity and I have had enough therapy over the years, at different times in my life, to begin to become somewhat accomodating to the messiness that is my family. For the last seven months I have also had my spouse's family living in - well, my living room. And complex is the least of the adjectives I can find to describe this situation.

Tonight, after seven months, they are gone - back to Africa. And I miss his parents deeply already, while at the same time I am also finally exhaling for the first time in a long, long time. With their being gone now also comes the possible end of any real familial closeness with the other part of his family here in our city....and although I care deeply for the two small off-spring that come with this package, their parents, my spouse's brother and wife, well, I hope for an at least temporary reprieve from their seeming need for drama, complaints and complications.

But while tonight has finally afforded Spouse and I a chance to compare notes on the he-said, she-said aspects of the past seven months, I am still struck by the complexity, the bizarreness of familial relationship. What it is that actually binds us together in families? In the case of my own brother and I - different as we are - it is a spoken understanding that no matter what, the bottom line is that we will always be there for each other. That doesn't mean we always get along, doesn't mean that we approve of how the other lives, that we always feel some kind of Hallmark card kind of love for each other - it seems to be, as he and I have worked it out over the years, that we will not need the other's approval yet we will back each other up when needed, no matter who or what the opponent may be. And we don't talk all that often, although we live in the same city; we don't live similar lives at all; we don't even see the same way on alot of things that with anyone else would be non-negotiables. But when we are together we manage to say more without words than with - we are, no matter what, no matter who, a united front, and would be if circumstances had been different, friends if we met. God help anyone who tries to bring the other one down - because there is a second wave lined up and ready to attack if necessary.

It is not merely DNA, not merely genetics, not merely environment or a shared history and background that binds my brother and I together....except all of these contributes to an often unspoken understanding when needed. At the base of it all, we just like each other even when we don't (something only siblings may be able to understand) - as people and accept each other for who, what, and how we have become. Neither needs the others approval. What we have together is deeper than that. So familial relationship is the tie that the public see, and is the tie that brought us together - but it is not all that there is.

Without that simple yet oh-so-difficult aspect, how do siblings get along in adult life? How do you begin to accomodate vast differences in morality, in responsibility, in daily actions and choices? And how do the parents caught in this vortext cope? I have seen my in-laws' hearts broken over the divisions between their children and at the same time seen my own parents frustrated at the unquestioning wall my own brother and I can draw between them and us.

How will my boys be when they are older? Will they be friends not only because they are brothers but because they genuinely enjoy each other? Or will they be at odds - not because of birth order or any other environmental factor....but just because?

I hope I will not one day be as my my mother-in-law has been, in tears over the wide gulf between my children that nothing or no one can bridge. My spouse admits he will always, no matter what, be there for his brother. But I think it is not for the same reasons that my own brother and I say the same thing. Acceptance versus duty-by-DNA. My brother and I are an unquestionable team because we choose to be, not because we must be. Which way will my own two boys go? And what is my role in the outcome?

Thursday, September 17, 2009

Don't fret....Fan the dog got fed in the end

I am at a loss. Wait, no I am not. Just had a brilliant idea. Will deal with brilliance in a moment...

Spouse is doing his neuroscience thing in California this week while in-laws and I keep the home fires burning...the boys are shattered with missing their father, I am in sore need of his calm, rational, normal view of life, and the Fan the dog, well, suffice to say we hit an emergency tonight when we realized she was out of food - and trust me, with a hungry labrador that constitutes an emergency.

How I will manage all of this once my in-laws return to South Africa is beyond me. Our new nanny is lovely and fits in beautifully, but still there is so much to do, remember and manage...I am terrified of what is to come. Topher is a gorgeous boy, but so intense, so demanding emotionally that it is hard to keep up with is needs - and Winston, well he is so easy, so compliant that he is easy to get lost in the shuffle of life and business.

I know everyone else manages this work-family thing with aplomb and grace. But I seem to be falling short.

Will get back to focusing on flash of brilliance, that of course, had nothing at all to do with what is really bothering me.

Friday, September 11, 2009

Garbage, garbage, who's got garbage....

I live in a house obsessed by garbage. Or, more accurately, I live in a house with people obsessed by garbage. Spouse's obsession is expressed by expending an unbelievable amount of energy in avoiding taking out the garbage. MIL on the other hand can’t wait for the night before garbage day - she begins before dinner to scratch through the recycle bins, eyeing the neighbours ‘curb-sides for evidence of blue or black boxes, and packing up every stray bit of tissue, newspaper and flotsam into the bins. Topher, however, makes her look like an amateur. He is obsessed beyond all proportion with garbage and garbage trucks. We have, at last count, 5 toy garbage trucks – a virtual fleet – complete with toy garbage cans, bins and skips. And toy garbage. Yes, that’s right, toy garbage. My life is not complex enough, not full of enough crap, that I can’t find myself on a regular bases twisting bits of tissue, newsprint, cotton balls and foil into little teeny tiny crumpled up balls for Topher to use to fill up the toy garbage cans, bins and skips, which are then lined up on the living room floor for the fleet of toy garbage trucks to drive by and empty. And we aren’t done yet. No, despite having the afore mentioned fleet of toy garbage trucks, my eldest is bereft, deprived, crippled even, or so he tells me, by the fact that he does not possess a side-lifter garbage truck.

And this is not all. No, not by a long shot. In addition to the fleet of trucks, the crumpled up bits of pretend garbage and the various miniature bins, cans, and skips, he also must PLAY garbage. This entails loading up his boy-sized blue recycle bins and his boy-sized trash cans – all of which are housed IN MY LIVING ROOM – with sofa pillows, the morning’s newspaper, toast crusts and anything else that isn’t nailed down and then the show really begins. He “drives” the garbage truck (aka the sofa) complete with terrifyingly realistic sound effects, climbs down out of the “truck” to pick up a bin and toss it into the “hopper” (aka the other end of the sofa) before climbing back into the truck, starting up the compressor and the hopper, and then “driving on” to the next stop on his route. And god help any of us if we want to either sit on the sofa during this time, read the paper, or have a cushion to perch on.

As if this wasn’t enough of a zoo, now Winston has joined in. The other morning I found him sitting on the sofa, arms held out in front of him as though gripping a steering wheel and heard from his mouth the unmistakable sounds of vrrroooooommmm, errrrrrrrrrrrrrrrtttt, sshhhhhhhhhhhhhht beeepbeeeepbeeep – the sounds of the garbage truck on its route – while Topher tossed the contents of bins out onto the sofa next to Winston. HE IS ONLY 17 MONTHS OLD FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!!!!

So you can well imagine the excitement this morning when the garbage and recycling trucks lumbered down the street. There, sitting on our front porch still in their jammies and munching on toast, were my two blond haired obsessive compulsive angels (and their Ouma), waiting and watching the trucks going about their business. The boys shouted and waved at their heroes and were rewarded by honking horns and return salutes...life for my boys will never again be the same, for surely, in their minds, it can’t get any better than the day the garbage men honked the truck’s horn and waved at them.

Ah well. I console myself with the idea that winter will soon be upon us and it will be too cold for the boys to sit on the porch waiting anxiously for their heroes to ride up the road....but by then they will have a new hero......the snow plow driver. For the record, I am drawing the line at making pretend snow.

Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Heigh ho, Heigh ho, it's off to school we go....

Topher just had his first day of school today. Wow. Amazing wow. He went off with a hug and a kiss and just one backwards glance and then bang. It was done. School. My first baby just went off to school. Wow.

His Ouma was with us - she cried buckets. Me, typically, I didn't. Well, not exactly. Instead, true to form I waited until I had taken him to the kindergarten drop off, driven MIL back home with Winston, then drove into work, fought with the parking attendants at the office, got coffee, rode two elevators and then, once safely embedded in my office with the door closed, I cried.

My beautiful, complex, complicated, smart, frustrating boy just started junior kindergarten. He has started his lifelong journey of education, good teachers, bad teachers, indifferent teachers. Started his life of days that I will know next to nothing about except that which he chooses to tell me...or that the school sends home in a tersely worded typed message - let us not get too rose-coloured-glasses here after all...this is Topher about whom I write....

But wow. Holy cow. Mercy Mother of God. School. Eeek.

Despite spending a huge portion of our adult lives in school, neither Spouse or I are a huge fan of school. He is a product of truly bizarre apartheid South Africa private schooling complete corporal punishment in high school, etc. I, well suffice to say I have yet to meet a school system or administration that I didn't want to bring to its knees for one reason or another. But spouse has his PhD from Cambridge and I, well there again I just had to go against the grain as well as adhere to that life-long tendancy to NOT finish things and am ABD (that is sooooo cheesy to even say, let alone write...) in History from Queen's, so I guess we have somehow along the way been co-opted into the school thing/hegemony. God help Topher. Given that combined background he is going to need every prayer that his Canadian-Irish Catholic relatives can throw at us .

I hope he likes school. He did today. Especially as there is a toy car transporter truck to play with and the toilet doesn't have a loud flush. He checked. And as long as he wasn't trying to flush the toy car transporter down the school toilet, I'm happy. Consider it a successful start to school. Well done, Topher. Mama loves you.

Thursday, September 3, 2009

Honestly, I do

- Mama?
- Yes pet?
- MAAAMMMMA?
- Sigh. Yes pet?
- What are you doing?
- Getting ready for bed. Now go to sleep
- But what are you doing?
- Getting ready for bed.
- Are you in your jammies?
- No, not yet.
- What are you doing?
- Sigh heavily. Never you mind.
- What MAAAMMMA? WHAT ARE YOU DOING?
- I’m going to the bathroom.
- Are you having a pee or a poo?
- Never you mind. It doesn’t matter.
- Is it a pee Mama or a poo?

Now, none of you, including Topher need to know this. But he is like a dog with a bone, so after debating with myself the evils of lying versus the evils of telling him the truth, I tell the truth. Suffice to say, you don’t really need to know.
- Now Mama? Right now you are?
- Well, no, unfortunately, not right now.
- When Mama?

Apparently, never again, or only once you have left home for university. Suffice to say during the last week we have had Topher into the children’s hospital twice, once for surgery and then back to emergency when he spent 3 hours clutching his side and telling us how it hurt inside. Upon arrival at the emergency room, he announced he was going to hop all the rest of the way and spent his time in triage catapulting over the filthy furniture. Needless to say, we called it a night shortly after. We’ve also gone through one antique chair, two toy school buses, one pair of size 4 boy jeans, and about 27 litres of milk.

I lovemyboysIlovemyboysIlovemyboysIlovemyboys. Really.

Friday, August 28, 2009

Me and Fanny McGee

Today’s Globe and Mail ran an article on friendship – female friendships – noting that “While the dissolution of a romantic relationship can be hard, the break-up between best friends can be even more difficult.” Perhaps more difficult still is not having the gift of friendship.

I’m not really sure why the subject of friendship is so preoccupying to me lately. If I scratch the surface to ferret out what may actually be troubling me, I suppose it is a few things: recent contact from high-school friends via Facebook; the increasing oppressive presence of my in-laws that has me dying to explode in a safe space with a venomous self-pity monologue about all the crazy ass things they are doing and saying; ageing.

I often chalk up my neglect of friendships to the huge extended family that I have – there are innumerable aunts and cousins about who I know I can turn to for help, advice, solace. They have known me forever, know my family dynamics, are trustworthy, and care. I don’t need to see them or speak to them all the time – but when the chips are down, we are all there for the other, no questions asked. It is the ultimate safety net. But it isn’t only that many of the personal needs friendships fill are for me filled by family…it is also me. I don’t particularly fare well in the demands of friendship. I suspect I internalize too much, feel too hard, empathize too intensely, and ultimately get burned out. I also suspect that the relationship with my extended family, where contact and check-ins are not part of the equation to love and support, means that I am a bad friend…I figure I am there if you need me full stop, but not so much for the casual chat. And the art of the casual chat, it seems to me, is the basis of many friendships.

I suppose too that I haven’t ever been comfortable in groups – circles of women who meet, share, support and have fun. I never was. Even doing gender studies in university and graduate school did not change my aversion to anything that smacked of “group sharing” – I seem to recoil from exposing myself in any meaningful and honest way at all to a group.

So why does the subject of friendship interest me so much lately? Surely it isn’t just because of a few voices from the past, the pressures of in-law cohabitation, or feeling mortal. Maybe it is being at a stage in my life where I am finally quite chuffed with life – I love (while also hating) my career, I have an amazing, funny, smart and drop-dead gorgeous husband who I adore, I am a Mom to the bestest little boys ever - and who ever thought THAT would happen! - my life has become what I never, ever thought it would be. So maybe it is simply that, when I managed through no planning or good management on my part to have everything I long thought was out of reach, I have relaxed enough to wonder how others, how those who long ago or not so long ago crossed my path and whom I remember kindly and fondly, are.

Or maybe, for the first time in my life, I am in sore need for a girls' night out and have no idea how to go about having a girls' night out, unless it is taking Fan the dog for her last walk of the day. Any ideas out there?

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

5 Reasons not to go home tonight….or to school…ever.

5. MIL and Poor Fan the dog are engaged in full out war over tomatoes…Poor Fan the dog is constantly sneaking into the garden to chomp tomatoes right off the vine – ripe or not, it makes no difference to her. MIL is incensed and has set up an obstacle course of slides, basket ball net, patio chairs and various push toys in an effort to keep Poor Fan the dog out of the garden.

4. Topher and Winston are wailing over lack of access to their slides, basket ball net and various push toys.

3. MIL is livid with me and spouse as we care not one little bit that Poor Fan the dog is munching on all the tomatoes.

2. Spouse is already in deep depression over the inevitable approach of winter.

1. I’m out of vodka.

And somehow I have to find the inner strength and serenity to deal with the inevitable approach of Topher’s first day at school. To be honest, it is not some sentimental weepiness or nostalgia that my little guy is now old enough to be heading off to kindergarten. Rather, it is the reality fast approaching that I am now embarking on a career of intercession and mediation between the school system and my spawn, and I suspect this is not going to be fun for any of us. Not Drowning, Mothering (http://notdrowning.wordpress.com) is all too clear in a I’d-rather-laugh-then-break-down-and-cry kind of way about the tyranny of late passes, missed days, school breaks, “professional development” days etc., and while her posts are dead funny, they also terrify me about what is to come. And, although the first day of school has not yet arrived, I have already had my first what-the-hell-was-that conversation with the school.

Back in June, the school sent an information package to parents and one of the pieces was a letter that outlined how the little sweeties would be introduced slowly to school. Part of this entailed me (although why I assume it has to be me and not spouse is something to save for another post) bringing Topher to school for a one-on-one classroom visit, AFTER which, the helpful information form written by the school clearly said, he would have the chance to attend, in a small group, school for 3 mornings over two weeks. Note this is to be AFTER the one-on-one visit. So blow me down if the school hasn’t buggered up the dates and times so that he starts attending school BEFORE he has his one-on-one visit.

I’m thinking, despite not being and educational specialist, this is not what they intended. But for the last 3 months I have tried unsuccessfully to reach the school to sort this out. Of course, being summer, no one is at the school to sort this out…until today. And blow me down again, but they don’t seem to be able to get a handle on the concept of BEFORE and AFTER…nor see the need to follow the procedure they have so clearly outlined in the ever-so-helpful information package.

So, here’s what I say: first time I get sent off to the office for a late pass, the first time I am late handing in a parent consent from, the first time I forget to call the attendance office to inform them Topher will be absent – and catch crap from the school for such infractions, I will haul out this coffee-stained, vodka drenched information package, wave it hysterically in their faces and yell “Cast not the first stone!!”

Now, I’m pretty sure I am not heading into this with the best of attitudes. Those who knew me during my own days at school will know that I have a perverse love of going up against the administration. But honestly, am I going to entrust the education of my son to a system run by adults who still are shaking on the concepts of BEFORE and AFTER? This does not bode well at all…not for any of us unfortunate to be thrown together in the education of Topher…

Friday, August 21, 2009

Done and dusted on a Friday night

I am exhausted. Exhausted from navigating the emotional minefield that comes with having my in-laws living with us, exhausted from the antics and drama two small boys have managed to dream up today, exhausted from fighting the bureaucracy at work and exhausted from keeping the household running, my marriage intact, and my fridge full of food. I have nothing left to give, no energy left to fix hurt knees or hurt feelings, to plan for tomorrow or to care for anyone's needs. I am officially void of pithy stories, humerous view points, sage opinions on the state of the world...not that I have ever been a wealth of any of these things, but it is nice to dream.


And I am officially out of good books to read. It is a perfect storm.

Monday, August 17, 2009

Far too much angst for a Monday....

Why do I work? It is a question that is in the forefront of my mind at the oddest of times, and to be honest, hovers quietly in the back of my mind most of the time. Today, it is right now squarely at the forefront, largely because of the most recent post at one of my regular blog reads, the Mama Bee (http://themamabee.wordpress.com/)

There is no one reason – and the reasons have changed and shifted over time. Like just about every woman, I work because my career provides an intellectual outlet – provides challenge, community, experiences, and allows me to make a contribution. It has also ensured that I was independent – able to feed, house and clothe myself. But married now with two young children and a husband who is professionally successful, as well as able to support the family financially as the sole income earner, I am continuing with my career. Why? Why isn’t mothering enough?

In part, there are in the back of my mind the experiences I had seen and heard, primarily of women friends of my mothers…one who returned home one day to find her entire family home striped of its contents except for her and the children’s clothing, the house listed for sale, and the bank accounts frozen or emptied. Her husband was missing – well, not really missing it turned out, but on a plane to Saudi Arabia with his girlfriend to a medical posting. He, apparently, had grown tired of their marriage and his life and had quietly planned for months this “escape” while also ensuring that he would not lose a single asset or dollar along the way. She spent the next years in poverty, struggling to find the joint marital assets and to support herself and her high school aged children. As well, there is was my own grandmother, who had similarly been faced with building a life as a single mother to a young daughter and 4 nearly (but not quite) grown sons when her husband drained the limited family savings before leaving with another woman – and my grandmother had to find any kind of work available to a poorly educated woman during the 1940s and well into her 70s. The fear of real destitute poverty was, I know, never ever far from her mind.

So I suppose these examples made a deep impression on me - I don’t want ever to be unable to support myself or my children – to worry about the next mortgage payment, grocery bills, or paying for swim/soccer/hockey/music/art classes. And to make sure that doesn’t ever happen, I am unable to place myself in a position where someone else earns the financial resources that provides for the family. I have to be able to pay for it all, or else I would panic…really and truly.

I am also a better mother for working and having a career – solely because I am a happier person…I like competition, I enjoy coming out the other side successful on a difficult negotiation or issue, I thrive on being busy, pushed, and contributing to public life in addition to the contribution made as a mother. But all my reasons for working and mothering are mine alone – they are a product of a highly personal experience and exposure to women who found themselves vulnerable, through no fault of their own, and found their children also vulnerable as a result. So do I support the idea of the “collective” suggested by Mama Bee? Intellectually, yes I do. The more women (who are also mothers) there are in senior positions, whether in the private or public sector, the more likely it is that doors will open earlier and more welcoming to our daughters, nieces and friends; the more likely it will be to see women taking longer parental leaves, to see work places and the market shift to be more accepting of different kinds of work arrangements. But in my heart, I know I work because I must…for my own intellectual and emotional well-being and to ensure the economic well-being of my family. And because my reasons are so intensely personal, I cannot step over to the Mama Bee’s position that would suggest another woman’s choice to leave the career path “contribute(s) to the negative view of mothers in the workplace.”

Thursday, August 13, 2009

Of pork and other things...

For those of you (all 1 of you) hanging on (or benignly disinterested in) my every written word, let me put you out of your torment. Yes, I did it.

The pulled pork was surreal – sensuous, melting, slightly sweet and spicy – gently bathed in home made sauce (two kinds, choice was up to the diners), swaddled in lovely, doughy, fabulously unhealthy white flour rolls and accompanied by creamy, slightly sweet, coleslaw. It was sublime. And for the first time in 5 months my father-in-law did not look up from his plate to utter his only words at dinner which are always “And now, what is for dessert?” – he was simply too sated, too enraptured by the pulled pork to even remember the word dessert.

Topher, of course, had his usual whole wheat macaroni and parmesan cheese. Winston, of course, ate what ever I put in front of him but did keep scanning the dinning table for any signs that the previous night’s wild mushroom risotto was making another appearance. How I could birth two such different children in terms of food preferences is a mystery to me. For the past year, Topher has eaten nothing but: raisin toast with peanut butter, cheerios, oatmeal, dry raisin bran, grilled cheese, berries, spaghetti with parmesan (fresh grated, don’t you know because he won’t eat any other kind) and whole wheat macaroni with parmesan. Throw in the occasional home made pizza (with ONLY kalamata olives and mozzarella, go figure) and you have his complete diet. Meat has never, ever passed that boy’s lips. Ever. Not. Even. Once. Vegetables, well, I have managed to sneak in the odd carrot or two. Winston on the other hand is a serious carnivore, a flesh-food gourmand. Steak, chicken, pork, shrimp, fish (but not salmon), hotdogs, hamburgers, sausages, bacon – you name it, he scarfs it back. The more flavour, the better – dinner with him is a serious of frantic efforts to stem the tide of angry screams when he has run out of tzatziki, garlic-lime-chilli pepper crusted shrimp, sharp cheese, steak with teriyaki, grilled vegetables, and risotto.

So dinner tonight, now that I am famished and thinking about food will be: cedar planked Atlantic salmon, boiled new potatoes tossed in butter and herbs, cucumber yogurt salad and grilled vegetables very lightly tossed with a roasted tomato dressing. If someone is crazy enough to expect dessert after this, they can wash themselves a peach.

Oh yes, and I did the shopping for afore said undergarments. A near-mortgage payment later and I am hoisted, pert, comfortable and quite pleased with myself. Bra Chic. Highly recommend it. Highly.

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

It ain't Paris, but it will do for now....

For reasons that defy simple, short and sensible explanation, I am getting ready to head home from work very early today and indulge in two things that I have wanted to do for a very long time.

The first is to shop for a very expensive, very pretty, and very magical (ie supportive without looking like steel girders) bra. One with no purpose what-so-ever (ie not maternity or nursing) other than to enhance where enhancement is need, reduce where reduction is needed, and lift spirits along with…well, you can fill this part in yourselves.

The second is to try making pulled pork. On the bbq. With a spicy rub and sweet, sticky, spicy sauce to mop onto it. Accompanied by heaps and heaps of coleslaw in a ridiculously fattening creamy dressing. This alone should kill about 4 hours of time and about 6 weeks of a regime of early morning walks and one martini evenings.

Yup. Lingerie and pulled pork. These are the things that will make me happy today. Not world peace, just lingerie and bbq pig. I’d hang my head in shame to be so shallow but the image of shredded pork on a floury, fresh roll with creamy coleslaw, the sauce dripping down onto my plate – and of course, of my newly swaddled chest – just keep over-riding all sense of proportion. And I may just have a second martini tonight…

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Why I may give up reading the morning newspaper....

There is blessed little time in the morning to do much more than scrape peanut butter onto toast, forget where I put my coffee mug, shower and dress for work, navigate the toys cars, trains, diggers, dump trucks, and front end loaders littering the living and dining room floors while tottering about in one high heel shoe, evade the baby's sticky fingers as he comes barreling towards me yelling, flailing a peanut butter covered Goodnight Moon in my direction, find my car keys and then back out the driveway waving like a maniac at two sad little faces as I head off to work (and hot coffee). But the thing I love, absolutely adore, need beyond all reason, are the few precious moments after the peanut-butter-on-toast scraping and before the toy-obstacle-course, when I stand idle at the kitchen counter looking at the morning paper. The last two mornings, however, the morning paper has run stories that have shattered my reverie, destroyed my inner calm, and left me cross and muttering far too early into my day.

Here's why:
#1. Lisa MacLeod's evidence in trial of Ottawa mayor was dismissed because she was commuting to Toronto, ‘leaving her husband and child in Ottawa'...Lisa MacLeod is a young female politician who commutes to her job at Queen's Park (Toronto) from Ottawa (5 hour drive or 1 hour flight) and leaves her husband, Joe, and four-year-old daughter, Victoria, at home. Mr. Justice Douglas Cunningham of Ontario Superior Court said this is a big distraction for the 34-year-old woman and as a result he felt he could not accept her evidence as corroboration of the Crown's key witness in the recent high-profile, influence-peddling trial of Ottawa Mayor Larry O'Brien.

#2. Catherine Bailey, a successful City lawyer drowned herself after struggling to balance the demands of motherhood and her high-pressure job, a coroner's court heard today. Mother-of-three Catherine Bailey, 41, was found drowned in the Thames near Richmond Bridge. The South African-born partner in a City law firm had only recently returned to work after the birth of her third daughter.

#3. Female managers face more harassment, study says... Male co-workers target female supervisors as a way to equalize power in the office.

Sigh.

Friday, July 31, 2009

I wouldn't trade my boys for anything....so there!

It is odd what people remember of you, what footprint you have made in their memory. This struck me full in the face the other day when someone who had known me through elementary and high school heard that I had two boys…her comment was, “Oh, I’m so sorry. You always said you only wanted to have girls.” Now, this is someone that knew me well back in the day – very well – and whom I haven’t seen or had any contact with in a literal lifetime. And this is what she remembered about me – this casual, uninformed, youthful throw away comment that I wanted, if I had children, to have girls. And she held that opinion out to me as I had just uttered it yesterday. As though no time, growth, or maturing had occurred in the intervening years. And don’t get me started that her comment was one that tainted the joy I had felt in telling her that I had two beautiful, bright, engaging and unbelievably funny little boys.

This is the footprint that I had left. Not that we had spent hours at school, and later in the evening, on the phone, laughing and gossiping. Not the family camping trips I had been included on, or the insecurities and fears of adolescence that we had supported each other through. Not that we had managed to maintain a close friendship through a complete lack of shared interests, separations, different world views.

And that’s just the thing. What do friends we have fallen out of touch with over the years remember about us? And how is it that friends we had all throughout childhood and early adulthood can become people we don’t recognize, that we wouldn’t likely befriend now?

There are people from my past that I remember very fondly, whose footprints in my memory are warm, firm, and when taken out and looked at bring me back to a place where, even if I didn’t particularly like myself at the time, make me remember and reflect that there was someone else who did. But now I’m not sure that I want to re-encounter them, to reveal myself to them as I am now – for what if they too have captured a memory of me that rings false me, to who I am know, and who I know I really, truly was then.

Friday, July 24, 2009

Welch's sour grapes

Well thank you Jack Welch, for turning on the light bulb for us all…it seems we have been struggling in the dark looking for that ever elusive work-life balance until along came Jack to flick the switch and illuminate the situation once and for all. For according to General Electric’s former CEO, “There’s no such thing as work-life balance. There are work-life choices, and you make them, and they have consequences.” Right. Just like there are consequences when I choose not to stop and get milk and bread on my way home from work. Or when I forget to stuff my purse with tiny dinosaurs, toy cars, and a diaper before heading to the office in the morning on days when I also have to “nip home” to take one of the boys to a doctor’s appointment. Or when work-related travel results in my 16 month old beginning to wean from nursing.

Sheesh, and I thought I was blithely going along balancing, choosing, hemming, hawing, advancing professionally while simultaneously mothering WITHOUT consequences. Silly me.

Mr. Welch has shown himself, in my opinion, to be not merely arcane and irrelevant in the 21st century corporate world but also in his latest cash cow adventure as a leadership development guru. He also reveals himself to be an insensitive, myopic and boorishly unsupportive husband and step-father to a wife who has her own successful career (albeit possibly helped along by an affair-then-marriage to Mr. Welch) and four children. And honestly, I’m not sure which one of these irks me the most – that he is so evidently insensitive as a father and a husband or that anyone will, after this, listen to what he has to say on corporate leadership development.

I'd get more het up about this but I am too busy pursuing my career before heading home to make spaghetti with my boys.

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Ahh...home sweet home....

Typhus, typhoid, H1N1, cholera – god only knows what it is but disgusting sickness has descended on our chaotic home like a biblical plague. Winston has been spewing fluid from both ends for a week now and totters pathetically around on stick legs looking every inch like a poster child for a children’s charity serving the third world; Topher is leaking thick, viscous green snot from his nose like nothing I ever want to see or experience again in my lifetime and clutching his neck screaming “it hurts right to my bones!”; husband is snuffling and shuffling around the house like a dishevelled sanatorium in-patient; father-in-law is lumbering (barely) pathetically from room to room when he isn’t lying in bed groaning, while mother-in-law and I carry on, feeding, bathing, wiping, swiping, stripping beds, doing laundry….all the while popping any pill that even remotely promises to get us through another hour without collapsing in feverish heaps.

But I think we may just have begun the long climb out of this fetid darkness….this morning, after the carpenters arrived at 6:30 a.m to continue building the front porch following a two-week unexplained absence, after pulling the dog out of the tipped over trash bin where she was supplementing her scientifically approved diet with day old shrimp shells, rotting lemons and something that for the life of me I still can’t identify, after getting the sofa ready to be picked up and replaced due to leaching leather dye (sometime between 9 and 1 o’clock today – could they be any more vague?), after husband announced he had a flight booked to leave this afternoon and would be gone on business until the weekend, after emptying the dishwasher, making 3 breakfasts, organizing the day’s wash which in addition to the usual boy mess included the previous night’s fun and entertainment of feces-covered baby blankets and 2 quilts, after trying 4 times without success to have even one sip of my coffee, I surveyed the scene and realized: Topher was not gripping his neck in agony, Winston was actually eating some solid food and drinking again with real gusto, father-in-law was well enough to surface before noon to wait for his food to magically appear before him, mother-in-law was calm and in control, and the sun was actually shining. So I did what any self-respecting, intelligent, exhausted woman would do – raced for a shower, dressed, grabbed my car keys and headed to the office where at least I had the faint hope of getting to drink a cup of warm, if not hot, coffee. And here I will stay until duty forces me back to the little bit of hell that is my home to chauffer family members to doctor appointments and then make dinner, clean up toys, bath, nurse, sing to and cuddle two little boys into bed, and then pour myself the world’s biggest, coldest, driest martini on record.

Wish me well. It has already been a very, very long day.

Sunday, July 12, 2009

Are there any other trees out there?

I say this to the other trees in the forest who will, or will not, hear me as I fall:

This mothering gig is by far the hardest, most soul-wearing, most 24/7 thing I have ever tried to do in my life. Skip the whole artistry thing of my youth, the doctoral studies gig, the career driven to excess thingy - this momma gig is a killer.

And after a full weekend of gardening, organic marketing, cooking, cleaning (bums, boys, household, dog), wagon horse rides, laundry, meal planning for the week, story reading, and little boy shoe shopping, I am ready to cry uncle and defeat... if it wasn't still almost my turn for nighttime stories after nursing Winston, I'd crawl into a hole and cry.

And Monday awaits. Monday with its get-the-boys-ready-for-the-day-before-I-head out-the-door-to-work list of things that need to get done (including call the plumber as the entire basement stinks of human waste due to some unfortunate incident with the basement washroom about which I still haven't heard the whole story) before 8 a.m. Oh yes - and I need to begin the nanny search yet again. Loving grandparents due to return to South Africa soon. Unless I tie the boys to Fan as a reasonable handrawn facsimile for childcare, we are all doomed. And as good as labradors are with kids, this may be asking a bit too much, even of sweet Fan.

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

I just read the most recent post from http://notdrowning.wordpress.com/ and just about lost my dinner laughing. Oh my god, too funny for words and rang all too true, except for the black lacy underwear part as it has been far too long since that has been a staple of my wardrobe.

But it rang true otherwise, this whole too much information syndrome that infected me at motherhood..... I was actually was on a professional phone call today when I found myself launching into a story about how my preschool son likes to make his penis into shapes. As in “Look Momma, it’s a snowman” or “Look Momma, I made an angel with my "wikkkee” Personally, seeing my son discover his "wikkkee" has brought my pre-marriage dating history (like there is any other...well, actually....no seriously hon, that was just a joke....) into a stage of understanding that 10 years of therapy could not. Men and their “wikkkees”...it is a complete, compelling and non-replaceable relationship. But I digress. Point was that on a professional call I actually started talking about my son and his penis. Totally out of context to anyone else who doesn’t share my seriously and prolonged sleep deprived state of existence, with a baby still gnawing on my breasts twice a day, all sorts of bodily fluids splashed on me before my first cup of coffee in the morning, and oh my god where are my clean nylons for that interview, and why in god’s name is the baby wearing his brother’s underpants on his head kind of life.

It is a bit cliche to say "I don't remember signing up for this," but it is true. I don't. I don't remember other career moms showing up at work with peanut butter smears on their suit jackets, or pulling out Tonka toys and diapers instead of the required meeting notes from their purses as all sorts of on lookers smirked and shook their heads. Before motherhood I don't remember starting my day off at 5 a.m with someone with a near full set of teeth sucking on my breast as though life depended on it before then having to clean up in the following order: dog puke from the back door mat, brown and yellow "refuse" from a nappy, pee off the change pad, the baby, myself, then pick up dog shit from the river parkway walk as I try to loose the martini bulge that I conveniently choose to call the last five baby pounds, wipe another baby ass, help the three year old aim for the toilet with his wikkkee spraying merrily around the bathroom like a coked up fire hose....coffee still pending, I might add.

Nope, this isn't what I thought would be my lot when we decided to "give it a whirl and see what happens." Love my life but hate the associate body fluids. Too much information, I know.

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Wishing in vain upon a star....

I have the post-vacation blues in a really really bad way. Back now from a week at an isolated ocean front cottage on Nova Scotia’s North Shore all I can do as I sift through the mountain of laundry, mouldy vegetables in the refrigerator and slide back into the daily routine of finding reasonably clean clothes for work, is scheme up ways to get us all back to the North Shore – for good. All we’d have to do is sell our home, quit our lucrative jobs, unsettle the boys from the bosom of their extended family, and move half a country away....how hard could that be?

Maybe we could try goat farming...use the milk for making soap to sell at a roadside stand to tourists. Or start up a garlic farm and put aside various garlic jams, oils, spreads – and hell, why not – soaps, to sell at a roadside stand to the same passing tourists...or maybe we could move to the nearest Maritime big city where I could get a new job in a new office, husband could get a new job with a new evil empire pharmaceutical company, and we could retire each Friday evening to a seaside cottage and stop on our way to purchase goat milk soap and garlic chutney from little roadside stands set out in an effort to attract the few passing tourists...

Topher and Winston would grow up windswept, rosy cheeked and self-reliant. I would become relaxed, environmentally conscious and have real Wellingtons to wear, not Canadian Tire replicas. Husband would become relaxed, return to his love of painting, and develop a resistance to Canadian mosquitoes, deer flies and black flies (who knew South Africans were such babies when it came to bug bites!), actually have a good reason to wear his real Wellingtons, and we would all gather around the fire in the evening, watching the dog twitch her paws as she slept soundly nearby.

Or maybe I could just grow up and get back to the laundry....

gj8hdvzx49

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

With Apologies to President Obama...

So early this morning in the bathroom, while taking care of personal business as I held shut the under-the-sink cupboard with one foot, held to toilet roll with one hand, and made a mad grab for the falling towels from the towel rack with the other, I sprung up from my perch to smash a mosquito against the shower wall. Got the mosquito, while 14 month old Winston got into the cupboard, unravelled the toilet roll and pulled all the towels off the rack. It is still early days, but I think he has inherited my multi-tasking (dis)ability…

But it all led to the idea popping into my head: What was the big deal about U.S. President Obama’s fly killing move the other day? I mean, crap, he was just sitting there, both hands and feet free for pete’s sake. Which led me to starting thinking about just how male-dominated the media is…I mean this killing a fly with one blow merited THAT much press coverage? Try stuffing a tantruming 2 year old into a snowsuit, boots, hat and mitts when you are 8 months pregnant, similarly bundled in winter gear (like I didn’t already feel fat enough without also being wrapped up in bulging down outerwear) and then carry him – and the packages from the shopping centre - out to the car while he thrashes, screaming at the top of his lungs all the way that you are not his “good mommy, I want my good mommy right now” AND then fend off security as you try to throw him into the car seat as he arches his back and flails about. Now that is worthy of world wide media attention.

I mean really, a million times a day across the globe, women are killing metaphorical flies (or here in Canada, mosquitoes) barehanded in one blow, not as they sit calmly unencumbered in arm chairs, but while they have preschoolers hanging off their necks, climbing up their legs, babies tugging at their tops, opening up cans of paint and wandering around with nail guns in their tiny hands. How about a little media recognition of that for a change? And a whole lot less about this Mommy War nonsense.

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

No wonder we can't have world peace....

So…yesterday’s Globe and Mail - self titled “Canada’s National Newspaper” – ran a short collection of articles on the “Mommy Wars” - this supposedly never ending feud between stay-at-home moms and working-outside-the-home moms over …well, I’m actually not really sure what the feud is about. Mommy Wars are supposedly between these two groups of moms about who is the better mother, what is better for children, selfless vs selfish…but what is really at the root of it somewhat escapes me. Although I suspect if we all think back to high school we can all remember a group of young women that just weren’t happy unless they were making someone else miserable.

I’m not particularly interested in whether the women staying at home raising their children approve or disapprove of my own decision to work and have a career in addition to being a mom to my two wonderful (and right now, filthy) boys. They can snub me at playgroup and the playground, keep in their tightly knit cabal and gossip to their hearts content within my hearing (although it is often viciously about each other, pity whoever among their group that is absent that day!!), and rebuff all efforts at common civility in what is a shared community space. But they may not step over my children in the sandbox as though they were bothersome Dickensian street urchins; they may not behave as though the play structures are there for the amusement of their offspring alone by shooing and blocking my own darlings; and they may not turn a blind eye when their tots bang or push either of my children but intervene vigorously when the same behaviour is dished out to one of their friends.

I don’t care if they believe all women should produce only children in this capitalist society of ours and then stay put to raise them, or if they believe that my “selfish” decision to work places my children at risk, or if they are jealous, bitter, thwarted or bored; happy, fulfilled, challenged, or entertained. I care that they show my children the same kindness, consideration, and interest that I show to all children that I encounter. I care that children are taught by a parent about friendship and common civility, about generosity, sharing, conflict resolution, and respect for others – even with they are different from us in how they look, sound, or in what they do. I suspect if we all raised our children that way we could finally put an end to the nonsense of Mommy Wars…certainly we all have more important things to fuss about, don’t we?

Thursday, June 18, 2009

Saint Kate

Lately I’ve been getting up at 5 a.m. – not because I want to, mind, but because the Winston is determinedly up at that hour. Not so long ago he would cuddle for an hour in bed next to me, allowing me a few more precious minutes of sleep, but not any longer. The boy is up and no amount of snuggling, cuddling, nursing, whispered cursing or threatening is going to get him to lie still for one more moment.

So, I’m up too. Now, a reasonable person right now is asking, “Why isn’t your husband getting up once in a while and letting you sleep in?” – to which I say, “Brilliant question!” But I have no answer. I suspect is the “penis rule” – you know, the one that means they have to hold the remote control, dress the kids in dirty clothes, consider mowing the lawn once every 10 days a major contribution to the household chores, can’t figure out how to open the dishwasher to put in dirty dishes….I think you get the drift. The “penis rule” also seems to cover both hearing the baby cry at ungodly hours and getting up at an equally ungodly hour with a crying baby.

But actually, I’m okay with this ungodly hour thing. Because it is an amazing ace in the hole. I’ve got this routine….nurse Winston, pull on some over-stretched Lulu Lemon things, grab sneakers, the dog and Winston and head out into the dawn for a walk. Summer had finally arrived to our sub-arctic mosquito swamp so it is lovely – and we walk through the parks down to the river and back into the neighbourhood to do some hills. Winston is happy in the stroller playing with his toes and blowing raspberries at any passing joggers, Fan is happy sniffing the air and running through the long grass, and I am contentedly deluding myself that this walk is going to help firm up my stomach and tighten my ass. Best of all though is that when we get back home, the house is still dark and quiet….I can have coffee, read the paper, eat breakfast and absently poke yoghurt into Winston’s mouth in relative peace and quiet.

No histrionic Topher, no husband banging through cupboards looking for what is right in front of his nose, no mother-in-law singing out inane non sequiturs, no father-in-law standing about in his socks, waiting for someone to notice he is hungry so the food can magically appear in front of him…. just Winston and I munching and slurping away. And for all this, this getting up early, enjoying the fresh air, a peaceful breakfast alone, I get an added bonus….everyone thinks I am a saint. A martyr. A gasp – good mother! Genius. Now I just need to figure out what my party trick is going to be this January when it is minus 30 outside…..

Sunday, June 14, 2009

What is friendship? How does it change over time, after years without contact, through different life circumstances? I’m not sure if these are the questions that have been nagging at me for a few weeks now, or if it isn’t more the question of what does age mean or matter? Either way, I am uncharacteristically uncertain and rocked.

I met up with a friend from high school recently. We hadn’t seen each other or been in contact since we were about 19 – except for one brief encounter at the train station over 10 years ago. We had shared an underage love of vodka, coffee and cigarettes, skipped classes together, gossiped together – she was who I wanted to be with when the urge to be naughty and risky struck me during my teenage years. She was vibrant, alive, with a cutting, intelligent wit and she was undeniably beautiful - with flashing dark eyes, high cheekbones, long, dark, dramatic hair and pale skin. The perfect foil for my anonymous Nordic blondness.

So arranging to see her after so many years was exciting and fun – I was full of anticipation of a new, yet familiar playmate to burn off some energy with, laugh about life with, be a bit naughty with – someone who knew me, but didn’t know me...

She is ill. Seriously ill. Her speech is difficult, halted, breathless, unable to support intonation. Her hands are locked in spasms. She walks with aid of a cane. Her children are almost a full generation older than my own ...her son old enough to have fathered my eldest. She feels her life has been lived. I feel like I am finally just getting started. My marriage is new, my children still babies. My career is still ascending, my household a state of perpetual confusion despite outsourcing about all aspects of its care and upkeep. She seems, and not just because of being ill, in her outlook, her experiences, her interests to be a generation older than I.

But we were friends. We know things about each other that go deep and are still true. Is this enough to support the renewal of a friendship? Can I be good enough, evolved enough, to see past who she was and accept who she is and befriend that woman? Can I admit in my heart that what really has rocked me was that she is a real, breathing reminder of my own mortality, of the fragility of my life, of my quickly ebbing youth? Can I come to terms with my fear that knowing her – this new her – does not mean that I have become old too?

Saturday, June 13, 2009

Here I go again....

It was once suggested to me that I had best learn how to finish what I start. I remain unconvinced the old “finish what you started” adage has much value other than conforming to some self-punishing protestant ethic or other....but despite a history of not following this suggestion made long ago, I feel guilty about some things left incomplete, hold regrets about others, and worry that I am in some way defective at worst and flibberty-gibbeted at best. Certainly I fear I lack the ability to stick it out when the going gets tough. And I am again feeling that old feeling of wanting to flee, of needing a change in path and direction, the impulse to – gasp – quit.


The source of discontent this time is my career...which seems to have stalled rather spectacularly. I have just returned after a full year’s paid parental leave, to the executive leadership development program that I was chosen to be part of prior to finding out I was pregnant with baby number two. Part of the development program is to undertake a series of progressively more complex and senior executive position assignments. Problem is, while I have spent that past 12 months changing diapers and doing laundry, the work landscape has changed and there are few assignments from which to choose. In fact, there are next to none.



So maybe it is time to leave this program unfinshed, quit this career path and start fresh. Leave this chance of a lifetime program that I have started, just as I left past interests, left my doctorate, left my first marriage, left friends....no drama, no long drawn out passionate angst – just flee quickly, near silently, without looking back.

Friday, June 12, 2009

Here I go....

The boys are both asleep, the husband is out with friends, the in-laws are safely tucked away in their basement suite, and I am taking a moment to renew an acquaintance with a long-ago friend - writing.

I have survived a week of career frustration, night battles over bedtime with a tenacious 3 year old, early pre-dawn mornings nursing a baby, meal preparation, laundry, grocery shopping, cuddling, reassuring, soothing, and fulfilling others. Now I need to find my own voice, my own pulse, my own skin.

Now where on earth did I put them?