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.

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?

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…..

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?

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.

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?