Literary Mom

C is for Cuddles and Communication

Cuddles are the miraculous cure-all for what ails. They fix scraped knees, scary dreams, sore tummies, harsh words, broken toys and with older children - when they still accept our arms around them -  broken hearts. There are sleepy cuddles, trying-to-wake-up cuddles, TV - watching, book-reading and music listening cuddles and the run and jump variety at the end of a school, pre-school, day care or babysitting day when mom has returned for her little trooper.

Cuddles are a magical form of communication in the early years. We hope our love, desires, hopes, and dreams for our children seep through our arms and into their souls. As the family gets older moms use other forms of communication...chats on the way home from school and soccer, family talks at the dinner table, good night visits at bed-time, probably coupled with some yelling, scolding, punishing and exasperation. Sometimes the message is lost, the communication ignored, the love and concern too deeply hidden in the fear of moms that their children are slipping away and the knowledge of children that their moms are human too. Cuddles can still cure but are not always welcome. The drop-off kiss gets dropped right along with bedtime stories and supervised baths.

But a mom's arms never stop tingling, never stop hugging, never stop searching to send the messages that may not be heard and are not as comfortable to say. The cuddles are not as aggressive, but they are still there, waiting for momma's babies, no matter how old they get, to walk in, curl up and remember they are loved.

Impetigo? or Good Luck?

Is a child allowed to go to school with impetigo? That probably should have been my first question for the diagnosis of the scabs that had formed around the little Gaffer's body and arms and were now starting to weep. But I was so relieved it wasn't some form of cancer or other incurable disease that it didn't occur to me to ask. The doctor seemed to think that since Mr. Husband and I have not yet broken out and she has apparently had it for 10 days that we are probably fine. It wasn't until dinner when I was wondering what the protocol for giving antibiotics at pre-school might be, when Mr. Husband informed me she would not be welcome at pre-school.  Apparently my little cherub has come down with a highly contagious skin infection and according to all the googling I've done, this means at least 2 days at home until the weepy sores scab or she's been on medication for 48 hours.

Yikes! This means a late night call to my school which won't even get picked up until tomorrow morning for a supply teacher. I'm half thrilled, half stressed at this turn of events. Friday is a kind of play day at school and I will lose my class time so I really need to teach tomorrow to keep up with the curriculum, but a day stuck at home with a child who does not exhibit any symptoms of being ill other than open sores that don't seem to bother her is a bit of a treat. 

But what do I do with this found time? All the chores on which I am behind, or play with my daughter. Just hang out and have a great hookey day together. We can bake, paint, watch tree house, nap and read books.  With three kids over 12 in the house, I know how quickly this time will pass. Sometimes good fortune comes to us in the strangest of disguises.

I think I'll take advantage of this little window and like Scarlet O'Hara, worry about the rest of it...another day. 

B is for the Boss….

Mothers are the nerve centre of the family. They operate at a more heightened sensitivity than the average human. At any given moment, most moms know, who in the family is where, what they are doing, which bills are outstanding what curriculum night is this week, whose pants need mending, whose shoes are too small, what laundry is lying on the floor and still in the washer, what’s in the refrigerator (unless they have teens) how much gas is in the car, what the temperature is (inside and out) what school projects are due in what class, who has just cried and why, who her partner’s sports game is against that night, how many more minutes until bed time where the good bubbles for the bath are.

Moms don’t necessarily have to be the bossy bosses that are always telling someone what to do, although sometimes that is necessary. They are the boss in the sense that they keep the company afloat. Dads may argue, but let me ask you this…what happens when Dad gets sick? Does he still make lunches, drive the car pool, check the homework and iron the shirts? Or does he go to bed …and stay there…and require peace, quiet, homemade soup and tlc until he feels better? And what happens when Mom gets sick? The average family will give Mom 24hours, at most. 24 hours to sleep, heal and get back to the front of the bus where she belongs.

Moms are bosses in the mentor sense. They are there for counsel and advice. They provide guidelines and safety nets. They set the hours for work and play and the appropriate remuneration when necessary.

Moms also bake, especially my friend Beth, who can bake any kind of cake you want, have babies, buy food and other essentials,  button up coats, blow up balloons, bring snacks on long trips and believe in their children.

Moms can be bashful, beautiful, blunt, bouncy, bellicose, benevolent, bitchy, boisterous, bossy, bubbly, buddies, bloggers,  but most of all…they are the best!

Pin Ball Brain

My head is pinging and ringing and gaz-zing with a few lights flashing and a lot of bumper pads being called into play. Sometimes I'm lucky and it happens during the day, usually while I'm driving. But lately the pinball wizard has been invading my sleep. I guess it comes with back to school time and fall schedules and programmes and curriculum nights and full calendars, but I find I can't keep up with all the things I should be doing, so the list keeps growing and growing and picking up the momentum of that silver ball that bings around dinging lights and screeching through point racking zones at the back of the arcade.

It doesn't help that the Gaffer has pretty much quit sleeping through the night. She wakes up almost every night now between 3 and 4. It's not usually for long, but it does require getting out of bed on my part and soothing the ailment...covers that have fallen off, dolly that has slid to the floor, a forgotten hug from tuck in time that must be administered. She usually drifts right back to sleep. Daddy, if he even heard her in the first place is firmly back in his zzzz's and Momma is now lying wide awake, usually for an hour, trying desperately to calm the bells and whistles of what needs to be done, what I did badly the day before and what I've forgotten to do over the last 6 months. On a really bad night there are also a few minutes usually devoted to some heinous mean little kid, adolescent girl crime I committed at that age that still haunts me.

As the right side of my brain and I are sitting serenely at the the kitchen table, the left side is frantically calculating my day. There are 3 children to get off to school, the first of whom left at 6:40 for soccer practice and the last of whom seems to be stirring. Lucy, my lovely, lovely cleaning lady usually arrives around 8 and I like to be gone shortly after because a) I just get in the way and b) guilt!  I made the decision early on in this marriage/family game that I was willing to take on a part-time job in order to have someone else clean my house, and it is the best decision I have ever made. But I can't stand to actually watch her do it and admit that to myself how happy I am that she does.

I have an exercise class at 9 that it is now too late to cancel because I will have to pay the babysitting portion at this point whether we go or not. My mom has a doctor's appointment at noon I said I would take her to and I have one at 2 that I'm not so sure I will make. The kids roll back in around 4, I tutor in the neighbourhood at 5:30 and have to be at my school by 7 in order to speak at university night...one thing I perhaps should have obsessed about last night and didn't because I forgot and for which I have not yet prepared my talk. My "so-not-a-book-club" meets at 7:30 which I could hit on the way home if I am still awake. I also need to read the next 2 chapters in the novel I am teaching and oh crap...hang on, just thought of something...ok, had to make a quick phone call that I only seem to be able to remember at midnight. 

In and around all this chaos, there is laundry to be folded, groceries to be bought, dinner to be made, fingerprints to get taken (oh yeah, our adoption documents are starting to expire and we have to do them again...gotta love the red tape!) and a host of things that I will not remember until the Gaffer wakes me at 3 tomorrow morning.

The tone of this sounds much more desperate than I feel, although I am quite exhausted. This is pretty much a regular day in our life, but I think my bumper pads need fluffing already and it is only the 3rd week of September! 

A is for Always

A is for absolute adoration, affection, astounding admiration, at times all-consuming anxiety and always. Once a mother always a mother; the bonds never lessen, weaken or fade. I am 41 and my mother still calls me to find out why I wasn’t home the last time she called. The “burning the candle at both ends” song has never faded from her repertoire. I get scolded for doing things wrong and lectured when I take on too much.

A mother is always on duty. From work, from home, for a newborn to an adult child or grandchild, mommy can fix it, find it, feed it, sometimes may it go away or hold on until it gets better.

A friend of mine lost her mother earlier this year and still finds herself going to the phone in the morning to make her daily call. I have another friend who has been quite ill and her mom has been her biggest champion. Finding help for the home, covering for her at work, driving her where she needs to be and watching her children when that is what needs to be done. Her mother is a force of nature under normal circumstances and I know that if she could, she would heal her daughter,s wounds and take away her illness and pain by the sheer power of her will.

We are mommies and we have had mommies, some of us in the most fortunate of manners and some us still recovering from the scars, but no matter what else happens in our lives, motherhood will always be part of who we are.

The Mother of All Alphabets, for Mothers, by Mothers, about....Mothers

Tonight I got my first upfront lesson in competitive parenting 101. I know the teacher at the Gaffer's preschool has nothing but the purest intentions at heart, but as she went through the calendar of activities and seasonal celebrations for the school year, the death knell growing between my ears clanged louder and louder.  The school chooses to celebrate everything, rather than a politically correct and sanitized nothing, but they hope to do it in a more traditional manner in order to avoid commercialism and economic competition. I whole heartedly support this in theory and if I had the slightest inkling towards crafts or anything creative, I would also support it in practice.

I have no problem with store-bought costumes, valentines, birthday cards, etc. The less onus on me, the better. But now I've gone and enrolled the Gaffer in a pre-school that requires homemade costumes, homemade cupcakes for birthday celebrations and hand-crafted valentines for each of the students. I'm not entirely sure how my little is adjusting to school, but I know my stress levels have just soared.

I've decided that the best way to deal with this, is to ignore it for the moment, so I am focusing on other projects. I realize I am stealing an already well established and successful idea, but I've already admitted to being low on the creativity scale and I haven't seen the ubiquitous alphabet books deal with parenting yet. I'm not trying to write a book, just put together an alphabet, with your help.

For the next twenty-six weeks, every Thursday I will post all the ups, downs, ins, outs, frustrations and joys of parenting, a to z, letter by letter. I have had a lot of fun keeping a list since I conceived of this project, but I know that my scope is limited to just my experiences and I want to make this as comprehensive as possible so please feel free to contribute ideas each week.

Perhaps somewhere along the way, I will come up with appropriate costume ideas and learn a little about cutting out paper hearts and doilies.

One Fish, Two Fish, Dead Fish, New Fish

People tend to give mourners some room. Humans are generally compassionate people. When there has been a death in the family, bosses, friends, extended family, social acquaintances, they all allow the grievor some space, some mistakes, a little leeway and opportunity to be less than the norm. I'm hoping that your generosity of spirit dear readers will be extended to the death of a fish, because through the process of how to deal with the demise of the first pet, the move home from the cottage, a re-stocking of house and school supples, the first days of school and registration for fall activities, I missed my post deadlines.

I am truly very sorry. I am usually writing these entries in my head all day long and in the last week, my brain has been so full with the business of life, my writing has taken a back seat.

And on top of all the usual early September demands, Pinky Nemo died. He, who was actually a she as we discovered post-mortem, gave close to a loyal year of service. The Gaffer became enamoured with the idea of a fish when she developed a fondness for Pinky, the Betta that lives at her babysitter's house. Mr. Husband has a thing about no pets who pee in the house, but the Betta, which actually has a life span 3x that of a goldfish, seemed to come in just under the wire. Originally christened 'Nemo', he/she became quickly became 'Pinky Nemo' in honour of Tiffany's fish.

Pinky Nemo was a loyal little fella. After numerous trips around the house in measuring cups and dry air calisthenics on the kitchen counter when fished out of the bowl for petting, I began to believe Pinky Nemo may be indestructible. Alas, that was not the case and when we arrived home from a summer away, PN was 'asleep' on the bottom of the bowl, nestled amongst the brilliant blue and orange rocks.

As I was contemplating just how to explain death to the Gaffer she said, "poor little fella, you must be very tired." Never one to sneeze at a good opportunity for avoidance, I suggested we take Pinky Nemo out of the tank and put him in the toilet for a good sleep. Of course, this dvd-raised child has so many images of Gill and Nigel explaining how to escape the dreaded life of a dentist's aquarium through the sanitation system that she happily placed Pinky Nemo in the toilet and flushed him away cheering, "have fun with your friends, Pinky Nemo!"

We then trotted off to Super Pet for another fish, "red or blue this time, Momma." 

The new Pinky Nemo seems just as happy as her predecessor. She is just as dull and pale and PN1. Apparently the red and blue Pinky Nemos are not as exciting up close. I'm OK with this, the females are also 5-6 dollars cheaper.

I was so worried about how I would use this opportunity to teach the Gaffer about death and she taught me a lesson in resilience and moving on. Now if only I could have these lovely moments with my daughter and remember to post my blog, I could be invincible!