Motherhood Bytes

Help-no really...Help!

2009-02-23T08:20:00.000-08:00

My ten year old daughter has just told me that she has an "unapproved" Facebook account (you have to be 13 according to Facebook to join-see how well that is working?). She, like her friends, is ten going on 13 and pushing into the envelope of what she can see and do. And I am proud of her. She was a careful and fearful child-we nicknamed her "safety girl" at age 3. I like that she is breaking rules and seeking information and stretching her reach. And she is very good at telling me what she is doing-I don't get all the details but she knows what is OK and not OK with me and that the rules should not be broken when it comes to safety.

But now she has reached into my world. And here is the dilemma: I feel that as a good parent I should be aware and involved and have access to what she is doing online, at least for the next few years as she flexes her online savvy and self. She and her friends have google mail and message and have glogs, and it is pretty cool to be able to email or text her when she is at her dad'.

Facebook, however, is my world. Clearly, it is public to a point, and though, certainly there are Facebook rules that apply even when my social filter doesn't, I am conscious of who I choose to allow as a friend-no clients or people that I would not like to have access to my personal life, no mom and dad (although I do have my aunt as a friend).

So what do I do? Do I insist that she and I be friends on Facebook (she has already said she would like that so it wouldn't actually be insisting), or do I let her just exist and ask to see her pages once in a while (or creep through her friends list like I did last night)? There is really nothing on my page that is ridiculously incriminating (except for the tagged photos of me from my 20th High School Reunion that I would like to disappear) and I do have teens as friends....

Or is this such a big deal after all?

And now something for fathers...

2008-11-25T12:06:00.000-08:00

If Only Someone Had Written A Song Describing The Bittersweet, Cyclical Nature Of The Father-Son Relationship

By Emanuel Bray
November 19, 2008 | Issue 44•47

How am I, I ask?

2008-10-07T10:46:00.000-07:00

As I stand, sorting through laundry, making beds, tiding the messes that follow me around, like a constant annoying companion, it struck me, that I don't really, honestly like doing these things. They just are, for the most part, the day to day grind. If I don't do it they won't get done, and then where would we be?

Well, I guess I wouldn't be swallowed up by this unyielding expectation, I've somehow gotten sucked into. The expectation that I cook, clean, make beds, play with children, and above all do it happily. There are days when I just want to lock myself in a room, selfishly sit and sip coffee, not read another preschool book, watch another moment of Treehouse or play on the floor, eyes glazed over hoping the moments pass more quickly. Why? Because I want to cram everything into this tiny bit of time. I want things for me, for my children, and can't find, or accept that sometimes something has to give. The beds might have to go unmade, the dishes might have to pile up, the house might have to become a cesspool for a while, in order for me to feel like I can do what I want and need.

I hate the smothering feeling I've allowed myself to exist in, because this is what one is supposed to be doing when they stay at home with and for their children, right? Sometimes I just seriously don't know who I am or what I want. Then, there are those very rare moments, when it creeps in, you know, that you could easily and very peacefully exist in a life that might seem, on surface anyway, chaotic, yet underneath, it's precious, creative and full.

It's like I hold back from this other desired life. One where I make a pot of coffee, let my preschooler paint, play with play doh and make messes to her hearts content while I draw, enjoy a day or life time of free living, of embracing who I am , or who I want to be, without the guilt of looking at the mess around me, us.

I sat with a good friend a little while back and she said something to me that I have thought about often everyday since. She said her mother once told her, find out who you are, not what you are, find it, know it and accept it. I've run this through my mind over and over again, trying to find who it is I am, through the layers of what I have built in order to make myself who and what a mother, a wife is supposed to be. In whose eyes? Well mine, or maybe society's, I'm not completely sure I know.

What I do know is that I have this small warm feeling in the core of myself that is growing, and it really feels good to suspect, that somewhere I am going to finally find out who I really am.

The Gift

2008-07-30T08:18:00.000-07:00

In those absolutely rare flashes of clarity, that occur to few and far between, it's an amazing marvel to see my children. Life is filled with so much noise--white noise, background noise, fulsome noise, outside noise--that my life, and how it intersects with my children, is seldom quiet. But recently, the din has lessened (I know it won't last long, so I'm grasping the moments), and I found myself seeing these people I helped create.

I stand, sit, lie, and gawk in awe.

Seeing them this way, in this brighter light (or with the veil lifted) is like being in a nature film, where, through time-lapsed photography, we watch a seed grow into a stalk, then into a bud, then into a flower, then, finally, but in a matter of moments, into full bloom. The remarkable beauty takes your breath away, yet makes you laugh at the impossibility of it. There's this sense of seeing something rare and special and forbidden, almost voyeuristic.

How can you possibly explain to them, or someone who has never raised a child, that regardless of their age you see them as they were--with puff-ball hair, small, clutching hands, soft cheeks, and voices to wake the dead?

My oldest son is 20. And, honestly, we struggle to find a way to communicate. I continue to be his mother, utterly flawed, yet with expectations and requirements, and he's pushing away from being my son--he's bursting out of his skin to be an adult, but he's confined by my rules, my way. So we tread carefully, and often clumsily around each other. We toss out barbs and occasionally wound each other. He's developed a protective skin to cover his sensitivities and vulnerabilities, and I hate it. I desperately miss the warm, sweet, thoughtful, gentle little boy he was, before he began to protect himself from the world, but mostly from the nasty, vitriolic divorce his father and I went through.

I still see the slim 8 year old, worry filling his face, as he pressed one of his special, treasured keepsakes into his sister's hand as I flew out the door racing her to the Emergency room, not the tall, hairy man he's becoming.

We have constant and regular conflict. Up, down, in, out, back, forth--"we don't respect him, his needs, or his privacy." "He doesn't help out the way he should, drinks our last beer, every time, and has no direction." But, then, as things always do, something changed the other day: a shock to our family that registered on the Richter scale. And as I braced for the shaking and trembling the shock would cause, I also braced for his reaction and what it would do to him, and us. I expected the worst. I actually thought I might lose him.

But as I steeled myself, my life was thrown into the slow-but-double-time motion of that nature film, and I saw my son begin to bloom. He's beautiful, just as I always suspected he would be.

I know that this moment suspended in time will end and that we'll go back to our see-saw of strife. It's life. But for right now I'm staring in wonder and holding my breath. The seeds of who my children are, and who they will be, were always there. That tall, hairy man is the sweet, gentle boy.

My children are beautiful. And for this brief moment, when bills and groceries and lessons and housework and cooking and scrambling to make a life fades to the background, I'm deeply grateful for this glimpse of their possibility, and their radiance. And today, to be their mother, is a gift.

Good Enough

2008-07-23T08:45:00.000-07:00

I'm a grown-up now, although it seems I'm still stumbling through some kind of childhood, trying to find my feet. I'm a mother, a wife, a friend, nearly forty years in the making I might add, yet still I feel judged, unsure of who I am, of who everyone wants, or expects me to be. I am what I am, I think, but unfortunately with that comes this perception by others of who and what they think I am. Truly, I'm a rather simple person, not all that complex, I want what most others want, to feel loved, complete (as much as we can) and accepted for who I am, even when I am not sure I myself know.

My childhood, frankly sucked, it was tough, I'm sure like many others. It has left me worried constantly that I'm not living up to it, whatever it may be. Now my parenting, friendships, and relationships are couched in this fear, fear that I'm not good enough, smart enough or interesting enough to contribute anything of substance.

As a mother, it seems you have to live up to so much, you must be so many things, yet your world is gradually shrinking. This is magnified even more now, because I stay home full time with my children. I'm out of the loop, I have little to offer, in the way of new and interesting ideas. I don't want to feel like I should be crucified or made to feel less than intelligent because I don't have an enormous world of current experience to draw from, but sadly I do. I want to be brimming with interesting topics to engage others in, but often I am not. Instead I have small snippets of my own life, my own experiences to share, and I hope that is enough.

I used to scoff at the idea, that one day my world would get small enough that I would become one of those women, who shared pictures or talked endlessly about her children, parenting and the other mundane issues that now surround my life. But here I am. This is what my life is for now. It probably won't be like this forever, but for now it is what it is, and I'm more than okay with that. Yes, there certainly are days when I want so much more, when I think back to the days when my life looked much differently, much more exciting, and I do long for those days. But as it sits today, my life is dirty dishes, and re-runs of Franklin the Turtle. It might not be glamorous or world changing, but it's okay.

I complain a great deal, but I don't want or need to tout some sign that tells the world I'm angry all of the time. Sure I get down about things, it gets lonely being a mother, a parent, a partner. That's just the reality of life, it's not unique or earth shattering, everyone feels these things. And yes, I might want to rip my hair out in frustration at being a mother, and what, that in turn, makes me in other people's eyes. The truth is I just want to get through today, tomorrow, and hope that what comes later is good. I don't want to buck the tide and fight against everything, I thought as a young woman I would, I'm just too damn tired.

I'm tired of worrying whether what I have to offer the rest of the world or my own small world is enough. Anything I have to share with others comes from me, what I know or feel, I can't offer anything more. We give of ourselves what we can, it might seem insignificant to some, but sometimes that's all we've got, or all we're willing to give away.

I guess for me it's a struggle, it will likely always be. I'm slowly learning to accept myself, and all that I am, and hopefully not only for my sake, but for those who choose to share their lives with me, that will be enough.

It Hurts to be Beautiful

2008-07-22T08:09:00.000-07:00

I am going to tell you a harrowing tale. One that makes my blood run cold, and makes me wonder what we're we making of our daughters?

Every Monday night my 20 year old son plays poker with friends. These are, for the most part, good kids (yeah, there's a little pot, a little more beer, and a lotta bad language, but there's no crack or handguns or plotting to overthrow the Man), they're intelligent, respectful young men.

They always play in the same place: in the basement at Jeremy's* house (*names changed to protect the innocent, or not so innocent--really, I'm only protecting myself, my son would kill me in my sleep if I revealed any real names). At 22 or 23 years old, Jeremy has managed to pull himself up by his boot straps (or in this case, by his keyboard) find work in an exciting, challenging career he excels at, and buy his own house, which he shares with his girlfriend. By most standards, it's impressive for a 42 year old to excel at their career and buy a house, but at 22 it's jaw-dropping.

Well, as I reclined after supper on Monday night, after a indulgent repast, patting my growing girth, it occurred to me that my son wasn't performing his careful preparations for poker night (throwing on his favorite crumpled t-shirt from the bottom of a laundry basket and attempting to find at least one sock that didn't expose his big toe). When I asked him why he wasn't going to the game, he told me that the game was cancelled for the next couple of weeks. Why? I inquire. His answer shocked and saddened me:

"Well, Jeremy's girlfriend is recovering from surgery."

"Oh my God, is she okay?" I say, alarmed enough to sit up straight (which caused an immediate cramp).

"Yeah, she's okay. She's just recovering from her boob-job."

"What? She had breast implants!! Why? How old is she?!" Let me tell you, I, who am not easily shocked, was shocked.

Evidently, Jeremy's 20 year old girlfriend, Laura* (*names changed to protect the recently up-cupped) has been dreaming of breast implants for years. She worked through high school and full-time when she graduated, saving and saving, not for university or a trip abroad, but for bigger breasts.

"Why did she get breast implants? Were her boobs really small? Why would she do that?" I say, becoming increasingly agitated, to my increasingly uncomfortable son.

"Well, no," he says, "she had nice boobs, you know, regular size. She's a really pretty girl. She wasn't flat-chested. Jeremy said she's just always wanted bigger boobs."

"How big did she go, like a C-cup, or something? And how does Jeremy feel about it?" I'm not naive, in fact, just the opposite, but this was something I was having trouble wrapping my head around.

"Well, actually, she went for a Double-D, and..."

"What!!!! What the hell!!! Holy shit!!!! Why would she do that? Why would she do that to herself!!!!?????" I rudely interrupt.

"I dunno. I guess she just wanted bigger boobs," shrugs my son.

"Oh my God. What does Jeremy think?"

"Actually," says my son, "He's not very happy about it. He didn't want her to do it. But it was her dream, and he loves her and he said he'd support her."

"Yeah, your damn right he's going to need to support her....him and WonderBra, for the rest of her back-pain filled life."

As a woman and as a mother I'm saddened and confused. What are we telling our daughters about their worth? What are we telling them about their value as people? What kind of world is this where a beautiful, young woman is entirely motivated by bigger breasts? What kind of world does she need to feel safe enough, special enough, good enough, attractive enough? What kind of world makes it's young women feel so imperfect? What kind of world are we making for our daughters?

And how did we come to a place that places more value on your waist to hip ratio then on your brain to stupidity ratio?

I feel mute. I'm so filled with rage and frustration that I'm unable to articulate how enraged I am. But the next moment, I'm so saddened that I feel weak.

I suppose, by the standards society sets, so consequently by our standards, it's pretty simple for our daughters to figure out where they fit and where they belong. Their achievements, self-respect, and strength is sitting in their bras, their noses, their haircut and highlights, or the seat of their jeans.

I'm not wagging my finger at others. I'm not blameless. I've created the same atmosphere in my house, around my girls. I have and do constantly critique myself, my shape, my flaws. I was getting ready for work the other day and one of my daughters said, "You look nice mom." I could have been graceful and accept the compliment. But I didn't, and I wasn't. My answer was, "Yeah, nice for a fat girl." All she said was, "Ahhh, mom, you're not fat. " Then she walked away. And she's right. I'm not fat. But I'm plagued with doubt about my 40 year old curves. I'm uncomfortable in my less than perfect frame. But it's not me that I damaged with those 6 careless words (though I certainly didn't do myself any favors). It was my bright, beautiful daughter.

How can she learn to grow into the kind of woman who's confident in her self, her beauty, her intelligence, her capabilities, when she sees me, her role model, so unable to be comfortable in mine.

This is hard. And I don't know how to fix it. I just know that I need to, at least in my world. I know sex sells, I know that attractive people get farther, faster. I know that there's power in beauty. But I also know that that doesn't have to be all. I know that I want more for my girls. I want their power to come from inside of them, rather than inside their bras. I want them to recognize how beautiful and smart they are. And for my sons? I want them to see women for everything they are, not for everything they show.

Maybe I can't achieve this. Possibly, my daughters are contemplating implants. But when my son and his friends tell me they feel bad that Laura felt she needed breast implants, I can hope a little.

All my ducks back in the nest

2008-07-18T12:22:00.000-07:00

Oh I'm a sap, a real, super crybaby sap. Today I picked up my son from camp. He's been gone 13 days, and it was a long 13 days. I missed him painfully, but hid it quite well, my husband would argue this though.

The drive never felt so long. The road just kept on extending out, further and further, like we would never arrive. Finally we arrived to see this gigantic looking kid perched on a log. I honestly didn't think it was my kid from that distance. He looked so big and tall, lean and tanned. That is until he came running to meet me. Then I could see without a doubt it was him.

I have never felt a hug that held so much in it. He hugged me pressed his face into my chest and we both burst into tears. Big hot sobbing tears. I promised myself, again, that I wouldn't break down when I saw him, but this time I couldn't hold back. He cried, I cried, we laughed, composed ourselves, grabbed his gear and headed home.

God it's good to have all my little ducks back together. They can be such a source of angst, but I wouldn't know what to do without them all!!

Welcome home!

Ready, Set, Go

2008-07-17T14:34:00.001-07:00

Okay, I thought that the kids being home, having a very loose schedule to contend with, would give me oodles of time to think, write, post, draw, read and relax. What a schmuck I am. Of course that hasn't happened. Instead I've been trying to invent ways of evading the kids, all of them, in order to put a few meaningless blurbs on the blog, or read a couple of paragraphs here and there.

Obviously I have not been at all successful, in fact, I feel like I've fallen further behind. I've gotten less time to be selfish, if you call wanting to change your tampon in private, being selfish. I don't even feel like I have the time or energy to bestow any kind of intimacy on my ever patient husband. What is going on here?

Well I'll tell you my friends, I'm a mother, a parent, a spent, drained shell of a woman. Sometimes it kind of hits me, that not only I, but millions, probably billions, of other parents out there, did not put in the kind of thought we should have, into becoming parents. I adore my children, I even admit to loving being a mom now and then, but I don't know if I'd have chosen willingly to spend from mid-twenties onward, being a parent, had I the opportunity to really see my future.

It's bloody hard. Harder yet, to admit that it's not all we thought it was cracked up to be. From the moment of conception, in whatever form that takes. Whether one has waited years to become a parent, or whether it was over a few bottles of wine, and a sudden, "let's just throw caution to the wind", sort of deal, it changes your life forever.

This occurred to me again today, as I was changing what seemed like, the tenth shitty diaper of the day. I am a mom, a real no-shit, mother. My life has been irrevocably altered, who I am will never be who I once was, years ago. I automatically think now about things, like, mealtimes, snack time, sunscreen, bedtime. Those are the first thoughts in my head when the days starts, "what do the kids need?", then I can pee and have a cup of coffee. The little sounds that are constantly in the background, you know the ten thousand chants of, "mommy?", we hear everyday, yet somehow still block out, become, for whatever reason a part of us.

The constant thoughts that are present in our minds of our children; where are they, what are they doing, who are they with, have they eaten, what time will they be home, what time do I have to pick them up. This is now ingrained in my person, who I am, who I have become. I can't seem to shake it. The sounds, the thoughts are always with me, even when I am so exhausted, drifting off into sleep. Those thoughts are just between that moment I am conscious and dead-to-the-world asleep.

When you become a parent, your world changes, almost without you knowing it. New parents ask themselves, "will this all come naturally to me one day?". Oh it will become more than natural, it will become like blinking, so automatic you won't even notice. You'll be wiping your child's snotty nose with the bottom of your shirt, or spitting on a tissue to wipe their face, in no time flat. And the horror is you won't even notice when that change takes place.

Whether you like it or not, your life is no longer your own. You honestly are unable or incapable of ever doing anything easily again. Your days of getting only yourself organized are over. Your mind has essentially been taken over, and all you can do now is run with it.

In the time it's taken me to write this, I have literally had to stop at least a dozen times, and, what is so ironic about this, is it's normal, I wouldn't expect anything less. Somedays are easier at coping with these changes, interruptions, yet other days it's nearly impossible. They make you want to run screaming, crying off into the sunset, never to look back.

All of the little things about becoming a parent, makes one just that, a parent, that's all. We're not super human, we're not able to leap over buildings in a single bound, we're just people. Silly people, who've decided to extend our genetic pool by becoming parents. We have our ups and downs, and at the end of the day we're just happy to have made it through another day, another year, another child without completely imploding.

Being a parent is like running a marathon, a lifelong, achy, marathon. You have those moments where you catch a second wind and you feel like you are invincible. Then you have those other moments where you really hit the wall, and feel like you just can't go on. Just take a big deep breath and carry on, we all make to the end someday, some way.

Fun, fun, fun

2008-07-11T20:41:00.000-07:00

I try not to be petty when it comes to my ex-husband and his relationship with our children. It's hard, sometimes nearly impossible, but I honestly do try. But, then there are those moments, those that make me want to dance and sing for my kids, begging them to like me more than they like him, begging them to want to be with me more than they want to be with him.

Hell, haven't I been the one who's stayed up countless nights, holding them while they were sick and threw up everywhere but into the toilet or bucket, wiping their tears away when they were in pain, physically or emotionally.

I never wanted to be that mom who needs her children to tell her how much they love her or appreciate her, but somehow inside of me there is this tiny voice that wants, no, needs, the recognition, especially when I feel like I am in constant competition with their dad. The fun guy, the man who has always remained on the perimeter of their lives, present almost exclusively for only the weekends or holidays.

He's not ever really had to think about much, responsibility wise, when it comes to the kids. Mostly, all he has to worry about, is what time he needs to pick them up, when their extra school holidays are, and what time he has to drop them off, dirty laundry and undone homework in tow. I know I sound bitter, and I really don't mean to. He loves his kids and he's a good dad to them, at least in his mind. No, his parenting is not what I would call ideal, but he might say the same when it comes to my parenting. I'm sure he does what he feels is best, and all I can ask is that he loves our children.

My issue is more with myself, and what I struggle with internally. I know it's irrational to try to compete with the other parent, but that doesn't stop me feeling the way I do. I don't ever actually do anything that indicates any kind of direct attempt at trying to win the kids over. I just wish I didn't have to feel this way. Like, the way less fun parent, the rule maker, the bad cop the one who always has to do the hard work of parenting.

I want to be the one who can run off at a moments notice and make my child feel like they are the centre of attention. That I don't have to worry about laundry, cooking, the hum-drum of daily life. But I can't. What's more, is I don't think I would want to be the parent who doesn't care for them everyday, hum-drum and all.

I guess I just get a little jealous here and there. I want to know that the kids want to be with me as much as they want to be with their dad. Even though I may not be as exciting. I may not be able to take them skiing every weekend during the winter, or do many of their favorite things whenever I get the chance to spend one-on-one time with them. Instead, mostly I just sit with them on the foot of their beds, curl up on the couch to watch a movie with them, or talk with them about their day. It's not all that glamorous, but it's pretty damn good.

Apparently life can't always be a carnival, that is, unless you have an ex-spouse who takes most of the heat when it comes to raising the kids.

Me, lonely?

2008-07-10T16:29:00.000-07:00

It's been all of five days and I thought, well convinced myself anyway, when I dropped him off at camp, that I wouldn't miss him all that much. I've been away from the kids a number of times (product of divorce), and to tell the truth, it's not ever been as bad as some have made it out to be. Honestly, most times, it's been great, I've always needed the break and they've also needed a break from me. Of course the house always seems so much quieter, and cleaner for that matter, but there is always this little part of me that wonders how their days are when they are away from me.

This time it's been different. I've been achingly lonely for him. I imagine his big toothy smile, his freckled happy face, and I get choked up. I miss the kid like crazy. I worry whether I've packed enough warm clothes, sunscreen, bug spray, underwear. I told myself not to act like a blithering idiot when I left him there, standing alone looking so proud to be going to camp for a whole two weeks. I didn't. I asked him if he was alright, made sure we had a look at his accommodation, gave him a hug a kiss, another hug and kiss and left him.

I know he's alright, but it's really weird sending your child off when it's not to his other parent. Especially for this length of time. I know he'll come back, feeling more grown up, looking taller, browner (well, pinker in his case), and happy, happy that he had the chance to have this experience.

I hope he remembers to brush his teeth, floss, for his braces sake, and have a shower often, so he doesn't horrify the other campers with his stench. I hope he isn't afraid to use the outhouse at night, and he hasn't been eaten alive by mosquitoes, and that he uses his sunscreen regularly ( the poor guy needs it).

I, on the other hand want to spend the remainder of his trip imagining that he is having the time of his life, and push away the terrifying thoughts that he might be mauled by a cougar or a bear, or worse, that he gets lost alone in the forest without repellent, sunscreen or clean underwear. I know I sound like a complete nut. I just needed to vent in order to get through the next seven nights.

The Motherhood Gene

2008-07-10T09:21:00.001-07:00

Oh my God.

I've just had a bone-clattering revelation. I'm sitting here, with my mouth hanging just slightly open, eyes glazed like donuts, with the slightest sweat beading on my brow. I've become the one and only thing I was determined never, ever, ever, in infinity, ever to become. It's a shock, and a little hard to say out loud, but, I've become my mother.

The transformation was so creeping and insidious that I didn't recognize it until it was too late. I didn't see it happening--and now, (insert high pitched, quavering scream here) it's done.

When I was a teenager, and then a new mom, being anything at all like my mother was my greatest fear (next to being abducted by aliens and anally probed). I mean, come on--she always looked tired and in need of a haircut, she didn't ever take the time to paint her toenails or try new makeup styles, she'd fall asleep, upright at the table, after supper, she constantly had a pencil behind her ear and a never-ending list of things to do, sure she spent more money than she could afford on nice jeans for me, but did she really expect me to go to the mall with her in the pair she'd been wearing since the 70s? She was forever worried about where my brothers and I were going and who we were going with, and, geesh, just try to leave home to back pack around Europe, and she was a burbling, snotty mess. It was down-right embarrassing. Didn't she have any self-respect?!

I vowed to be the exact opposite of womanhood and motherhood. I was going to be liberal, cool, calm, unrushed, and sophisticated. My philosophy was simple, intuitive, and intelligent--every person has their own path to walk, and their feet are firmly planted on that path the second they're born, so all I had to do was give the people I brought into the world a place to live and grow, spread a little love and warmth around, and the rest was up to them. If they made mistakes, it was part of their growth, important to where their path was taking them, not my concern. I was free to live my life while they lived theirs, and yeah, our lives would intersect, but sometimes that might be kinda nice and fun. In fact, after my first child was born, and I was moving with his father to a small town, where I likely couldn't work, I asked my mom (and this is a direct quote), "What am I going to do all day? I'm going to be so bored. It'll only take an hour to clean the house, and then what?"

Well, I know you suspect what I'm going to tell you next. Mmmhhmmm. My philosophy imploded about a week after I had to put it into practice. And it wasn't pretty.

I was a bloody mess.

Twenty years later? Still a mess. I constantly have a pencil tucked behind my ear, dirt under my fingernails, I still manage to wear t-shirts with breast milk stains on them (my last child stopped nursing 3 and a half years ago), my hair occasionally looks like I've dragged a brush through it, and as for the lists, I can't keep them organized. I keep losing them, so consequently I can't keep track of what I've done, what I'm doing, or what I'm suppose to do (in fact, before I owned a cell phone, I actually lost one of my kids because I misplaced the field trip notice that told me where I had to pick him up. It was a harry couple of hours!) When I wear toenail polish, it looks chipped about 15 minutes after I've applied it, and worst of all, I spend every waking (and often sleeping) moment of my life in a state of perpetual worry about my kids--I'm a snotty, burbly mess. In short....I'm my mom. I'm starting to look like her--my small, perky boobs seem to be getting bigger every bloody day, and sound like her. I find her voice coming out of my body at a startlingly regular rate. Just the other day, in a fit of frustration, I inadvertently used one of the well-know gems I heard regularly throughout my youth--"If you keep acting like that, I'm going to drop kick you in the crotch."

The transformation is complete. And now, after the shock has worn off, I realize it's not as bad as I imagined it would be. She wasn't perfect. She blew it sometimes (lotsa times). But age is the great equalizer and I see things differently. She wasn't deplorable. She was a mom and woman doing everything she could to make our lives, and her life, work. She encountered struggles, successes, joy, vomit, and interminable Christmas concerts, just like me, just like you.

From here, where I sit, right now, it seems to me that the things I reviled in her are the things I've become (though honestly, I'll never be as organized or tidy as she is--I mean, she never once lost one of us). As it turns out, the reality is nothing like the fear. It took me alotta years to figure this out.

And what about her? What about my mom? Twenty years later, she's become everything I intended to be--well put together, sophisticated, cool, calm, and unrushed.

Maybe if I'm really, really lucky, someday, I'll get to grow into that part of her too.

Takin' It Easy

2008-07-09T08:59:00.001-07:00

Today I just want to sit and be. I don't want to run through the day, lists abound, rushing to get everything done. I want to enjoy the smallest one. Watch her laugh and be silly, sit with her endlessly, not worrying about the beds, laundry or dishes.

Today I want her to feel I am here, present, available. I don't want to quiet her, hold her off, make her wait. I want to be her best mommy today, her playmate, her friend. So I pack our ragged backpack, with our towels, our sunscreen, our snacks. And love the day with her in it.

Will I Always be Broken?

2008-07-07T15:10:00.000-07:00

Sometimes it hits me like a slap in the face. You know, the kind of slap in the face that comes when you're not expecting it? Well that's how it feels once in a while. When the realization creeps in that I'm pretty alone in the world. Here I'm supposed to be this brave strong woman, mother and wife, but more often I'm left feeling like a small scared child, abandoned at the bus station with no where to go.

I have a loving, wonderful, warm husband, three beautiful children, not much missing really. Aside from that feeling of belonging, somewhere and to someone. I know, this is so old already, but I keep coming back to it, running through all of it. The reasons, the fears, the what ifs.

Mostly it hits me when there are events in my life, or my children's lives, that I would love more than anything to have someone who I am, we are, connected to through blood to share it with. I had my last child without having my mother in my life. Our beautiful baby was born and the event was shared with only a few, my mother not being one.

I wanted throughout my pregnancy to talk with her, shop with her, laugh with her. But it's just a big fantasy, one that I keep reliving. One that I keep alive by imagining the kind of relationships I will have with my own children when they are grown. One that I envy in others when I see them with their mothers, or fathers for that matter.

I'm not a heartless callous daughter, who doesn't speak to her mother because I am simply making a point, or pissed off about years of misunderstandings. You know the mother daughter complex, "she just doesn't get me." On the contrary, I' ve spend many, many years trying to get this relationship to work, or at least make in manageable enough not to put me in the nut house myself. But it always falls flat, the rug is pulled out from under me and I'm left, most times, in complete shock.

I' ve had all sorts of advice, like, "forget it, put it behind you, it's brought you too much pain as it is." It's good advice, especially from those who have seen me through much of the pain associated with the relationship with my mother. But I am not sure they can understand the complete aloneness this decision brings. I've also had plenty tell me, "You've only got one mother, and when she's gone, you'll have regrets forever.", this stings more than I can explain. As I am a mother, and I can't tell you what it would do to me to lose my children.

What I can tell you, is that not having my mother in my life grows more difficult each day. We all need a place to belong, meaning outside ourselves, without that we're wander, and wonder. What happens when where you come from is too disastrous a beginning to ever want to go back?

So here I sit, a few years later, the same place I was when this all began.

Today I go for a test. I'm not happy about it, and I would like more than anything to talk with her about it, but how? I keep running it through my mind, what if something is really wrong with me, will she ever know, what if something terrible happens to her, will I ever know? I don't have any answers, and I know it seems it should be just as easy as just picking up the phone, or writing a letter. It is not. Letting her back into my life, our lives, comes at such a high cost, and I'm not sure I am prepared to pay.

So I live, for the moment anyway, with my decision.

Stellar and Stupid Parenting Moments of the Week

2008-07-07T12:15:00.000-07:00

Welcome to week one of a new weekly feature here at Motherhood Bytes (In fact, I only just thought it up--it's fly-by-the-seat-of our-pants week here.

Stellar and Stupid Parenting Moments of the Week

By all that is sensible and logical in the universe, I should have introduced this on Friday, or Sunday--those being the typical end of the week days, but being the madly irrational woman I feel confident I have proven myself to be, I've left it 'til a Monday. And as the creator of this column, I figured it was only right that I kick things off, and really, since none of my compatriots even suspect I've invented it, I have no choice. So here goes. Here are my monumentally stellar and stupid parenting moments of the week:

Going for Gold: This week, I went in to work at the ungodly hour of 6:00 a.m. so I could work nearly a full day and then pull a fast-excape. I wanted to spend the warm, sweet, sticky afternoon with my kids. It was worth it.

Supreme Underachiever: My 6 year old son has never been in organized sports. I have lots of excuses--he's too young to even get what's going on, he's an artist not an athlete, all the poor little buggers do out there on the soccer pitch is chase the ball like a bunch of lemmings--and we can do that in the backyard (and the backyard doesn't have a registration fee). Really, I'm just lazy. Well, the other day, as we were playing a miniature game of baseball in our registration-free backyard, he got fed up, threw himself down on the patio with his legs splayed and his arms hanging limply at his sides, and shouted, "You NEVER register me for sports!!! I just wanna play sports! You never let me play!!!!!"

Job well done, Sloth-Girl! Job well done.

But after baring my parenting faux-pas, I thought you should hear a real doozy, courtesy of newsoftheweird.com

The reputation of the Japanese for being humble is falling to Western norms among primary-school parents, according to a June dispatch from Tokyo in The Times of London. "Across Japan, teachers are reporting an astonishing change in the character of parents" as they push for their children's "rights." In one school's performance of "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, "there were 25 Snow Whites after "monster parents" bullied officials into admitting that it was not fair to have just one kid in the title role. [The Times (London), 6-7-08]

Have a moderately sane, occasionally indulgent parenting week!

It's a Perfect Day for Bananafish

2008-07-04T19:23:00.000-07:00

I have a confession to make. Yes, another one. Another shameful, dirty, secret, secret. It's the reason I've been so remiss in writing (it's been plaguing my thoughts and making me about as fun to be around as a pube-speckled bar of soap):

I don't know who I am.

That's it. That's all there is to it. I know--big fat stinkin' deal. You were hoping for a salacious shameful, dirty, secret, secret. A great fat juicy one, like, maybe, I slyly channel Mrs. Robinson and exploit my own Ben Braddock on the third Thursday of every month, or that I have a clitoral piercing that tickles when I walk, or that when I say I'm just running out to Home Depot to get a washer for the drippy tap, I'm really getting away from the house to conduct my side-business as the Madam of a high-cost escort service (politicians and professionals only, naturally).

Sorry to disappoint. But I'm not that fun. The best and most revealing thing I can tell you about myself is, I don't know who I am. Who does, really, other than Seymour Glass, Arjuna, or the Dalai Lama?

But I can't really model myself on one of them: one's fictional (and dead), one's mythological (and dead), and one is fully booked up into my next life giving keynote speeches (after which time, I'll be dead). So, outside of saying: this is how many kids I have, or this is how many times I've been married, or this is the job I go to every day, or this is how old I am, or this is my astrological sign, or this is what color my hair is, really, I have no way to define myself. Except, that I'm a desperate, confused, conflicted, raging maniac.

And so I smile--most of the time. I pretend I am what I imagine other people see in me: smart, attractive, brave, kind, snide, flippant, standoffish, and haughty. And I pretend to be the person other people see me being: a mother, a wife, a writer, an editor, a daughter, a sister, a friend. Sometimes. Today. The weight of these things is, at one time, heavy and ethereal. All at once, I feel the full weight on gravity pushing me deeper and deeper into myself and the ground, and then in an instant, I feel like smoke, formless and drifting and unable to grab hold of anything, anyone, myself. Sometimes, I want so desperately to throw this, them, everything off, and disappear so that I might discover who I am, what I am, why I am.

But what does this have to do with you? For that matter, what does this have to do with me? It's just philosophical navel-gazing, right? Yet everything I touch is touched by this, every person in my life grazes up against this crazy black hole. And what does that do to the people I love? These are people I chose or got stuck with, and people who chose or got stuck with me. I want so desperately, like most parents, for my children to have a better life than I have. I sometimes desperately wish that I could restrict that desire for them to having a bigger house, a nicer car, a fatter bank account, or a slimmer ass, but I'm saddled with this constant searching that makes me almost obsessively crave completeness for my kids. To have the real, true gift of knowing themselves. But now the crux: how do I teach them, or model for them, how to be whole when I'm so unsure myself.

So where does this leave me? No where new. No where different. Where does this leave them? Sadly, but honestly, on their own. It's crazy really. I love them madly, insanely, and often, madly wish they'd leave me alone--maybe so I could find a way to just be with them. Maybe so I could find a way to just be with myself. See, what I tell you about being a desperate, confused, conflicted, raging maniac. I've been here before. It'll pass. But right now, it's sad. I want so much to be so much more than the person who buys their groceries, cooks their meals, goes to their parent-teacher interview, hold their hands. I want to be the woman and mother they deserve (and the woman and mother I deserve too). But for right now, I'll just keep pretending. Fake it til you make it, right?

I suppose we really are, at the end of the day, only a light unto ourselves. We are what we come into the world with, and the only thing we leave the world with, but it doesn't stop me thinking and thinking and thinking and thinking and wishing and wanting to be more.

My grandmother used to say, "If ignorance is bliss, tis folly to be wise." Sweet Jesus, what I wouldn't give for a nice dose of ignorance right now.

I'll just have to settle for a Scotch.

It's Lonely At The Top

2008-07-03T21:56:00.000-07:00

It's lonely at the top, of the food chain that is, well in my house anyway. It's eat or be eaten, and I tend to be the big drooling T-Rex that is terrorizing the rest of the innocents.

Seriously though, we've all been subjected to those ridiculous sayings, "If mom ma's not happy no body's happy", and the likes. Well sad but true, much of that rings true for many of us. Like it or not somehow we've been thrust to the top of the heap, willing or not, we are standing on a pseudo pedestal, and man it's a lonely place to be.

Suddenly we become to the go-to-person for everything, from what the entirety of our family is going to eat, to what we will do as a group. Not only that, we also become the know-all of too much else in every body's personal lives. It's just too much for one person, we're supposedly the most enlightened in our household, and sometimes we just want to catch a freakin' break. Sit there with drool pouring down our dumbfounded chins, and just be still and quiet.

I am not sure I was meant for an entire group of people to follow, obligingly and sometimes blindly. For God's sake sometimes I don't even know what I want to wear, eat, drink or think for that matter. Yet, I am given the task of doing this for others. How can they have this much faith and trust in me, especially when, for the most part I fall flat on my face, or fail miserably at a lot of it.

Oh it makes us moms tired and frustrated. I am sick to death of making decisions, I want to be told what, where, when we are doing something, and follow along like a lemming. I don't want to be asked, after being clear about wanting to do something, anything, what it is I had in mind. Humor me, do whatever it takes, just make a decision that doesn't involve me having the final word.

I seriously don't want the rest of my family hovering around me like bees in a colony, I want them to be free, independent decision makers. I want them to take the initiative without being told, exactly what that initiative is. Because, my friend, if I have to tell you then I might as well do it myself.

All of this being said, it's hard to give up one's throne. Especially when our faith in those under us is constantly called into question.

My Babies

2008-07-02T21:32:00.000-07:00

I watch my little girl grow, she is changing incredibly everyday. I am amazed at what a tiny little person, and her ever growing mind can do. Each day I'm afraid I am becoming increasingly more forgetful, struggling to remember the simplest of things, the placement of keys, a parking space, a common word. And here this small wonder whisks through life, gathering, storing and using enormous amounts of information, always hungry for more.

What happens to us as we age? It's scary to think, it wasn't too long ago I felt as hungry for new information as she is now. Now I feel a low fog creeping in, stealing away that hunger, making me tired and complacent.

I remember gathering new things I' learned, as though they were tiny precious stones. Putting them deep into my pocket to take out and admire, and brag about later. Now I watch a small little girl, with wonderment shining in her big blue eyes. Forming words from what she hears repeated to her. Taking my hand to show me something that has intrigued her. She stumbles over the new words that fall from her perfect little mouth. She savours each of her new words like a delicious treat, running them over her tiny tongue.

It's a beautiful thing to watch your child learn, and grow. For some reason, maybe it's denial, I forget that it happens everyday. That each day she'll continue to change right before my eyes. Still I am stunned when she does something she has never done before. When she says a new word, or makes huge physical leaps and bounds, I'm left feeling proud, a little sad, and unbelievable happy, all at the same time.

I am so excited to see what her future holds. To watch her become more independent, stand on her own two feet, to grow into a girl, and then into a young woman. But there is always the tiny ache that makes me forget the sleepless nights, the frustration of temper tantrums, and the sheer exhaustion of being the parent of a small child.

I've watched two other children grow up and away from me, becoming real, live people. They no longer need me to wipe their noses, or their bums, thank God, I can never be grateful enough for that. But, they'll no longer crawl up onto my lap, hold my face in their hands, tell me they want to live with me forever, or marry me because they just can't leave. Instead they've become these wonderful (although exceptionally annoying much of the time) people, who are separating, ever so slowly from the clutches of their mother.

I guess that's the thing with the smallest one. I float between wanting to get my own independence back, yet wanting to hang onto the remaining moments of my last and youngest child being small.

Slump

2008-06-30T11:16:00.000-07:00

I'm terrified, I'm in the mother of all slumps. Summer is finally showing itself, the kids are done school, no more lunches, no more tight schedules, no more homework or backpacks. I always look forward to this time of year. When I can finally shut down, slow down and unwind from the year's tightening grip. But this year it feels different.

The big kids are older, they aren't around too much, the little kid, well, she's still little, and me, well, I sit and wait. I wait for some kind of epiphany, some kind sign that will point me in the direction I need to go, but nothing. I think I've spent the better part of the last 13 years running on auto pilot, just doing what needs to be done. I've run around like a crazy person year after year, without any kind of a break, and now I am staring face to face at one (well kind of), and I don't know what the hell to do with it. The longer I sit and wait the more difficult it becomes to dig myself back out of this pit.

My creativity is in the toilet at the moment and I'm not sure how to get it back. I still do the day to day stuff of most mothers do, tidy, complain, clean, complain, cook, complain and finally do it all over again. It just seems like it's missing something, chaos maybe, I don't know. It seems the more I used to have on the go and on my plate the easier it was to get through the days. My heart raced, I had more purpose than emptying the dishwasher or changing the beds.

Now the days somehow don't feel long enough, but at the same time feel sort of endless. How the hell can that be, I ask myself? But there it is. I want to sit quietly and read, I want to be in a room full of exciting people, I want to draw, I want to sing, to dance, to feel more alive, and for some reason I want it all at once. I know that 's impossible, I know it's slightly irrational (well more than slightly), but it doesn't make me want any of it any less.

I want purpose, and I already know that people will be thinking, "well you already have purpose, and a very important fulfilling purpose, in being a mother". Well that's all well and good, but sometimes, hearing that, or thinking that yourself, just doesn't cut it. I am a mother, and there are many pieces of it that I enjoy and dare I say love, but then there are other parts, parts that leave you feeling a little disillusioned, for lack of a better description. One can only do and redo certain things so many times without feeling like they've somehow lost it.

Somedays, it's all one can do just to get up, put one foot in front of the other, go through the motions of the day, go to bed that night with the knowledge that tomorrow you'll get up and do all of it again, and probably in the same order.

So slumped I am. I'm sure I'll get out of it one day, hopefully anyway. Until then I'm glad I can say it, feel it and do what I can to fight it, or maybe I'll learn to embrace it. God that's a scary thought.

The New Life of a Former Sexpot

2008-06-25T08:12:00.000-07:00

Sounds riveting doesn't it? Well not so much.

There once was a girl who was fun, exciting, and sexy. She liked to stay up late at night (well she used to be able to anyway), she loved adventure, traveling, eating exotic foods, doing things at the spur of the moment. She loved having wild, crazy passionate sex, and felt sexy doing so.

Well, what ever happened to that girl? She grew up, got married, had a few kids and lost her power. No it wasn't the super hero kind of power, but it was the kind of power that made her feel alive, and vibrant. And no it's not all about sex and the loss of what it used to be and mean to her. It's the loss of feeling desired, of feeling sexy and youthful. More frightening than that it's the realization that she is slowly becoming less visible to the rest of the world.

She sits back and watches. As women age, something happens, people start to perceive them differently. It seems like we lose something vital not only when we age, but when we become mothers. The perception of ourselves is forever altered, and it changes how others see us. And this doesn't seem to affect men/fathers in the same way.

Instead as men grow older they become more interesting, more attractive and therefore more appealing. Men gain, and women lose. I don't know how this occurs, but I've watched it happen time and again.

There is an interesting dynamic that takes place. When women are younger, they have all of the power, whereas, younger men do not. Very young women have this vibrancy about them, a kind of super charged sexuality that young men are drawn into and ultimately controlled (to some degree) by. And as women get older, have children, this power often shifts to their male mate.

Often after becoming a mother, we see a very large change in our sexual drives. Our energy is obviously focused elsewhere, like trying to maintain sanity, take care of everyone else around us and if there is any time left, we try to get some much needed sleep. The way we see, or imagine our bodies changes significantly, and that sexpot we used to be has faded into oblivion.

I personally miss feeling like a hot, sexy, desired woman. I am also thoroughly sick of feeling haggard, exhausted and unattractive, like I am just going through the motions much of the time when it comes to sex. I want more than a "quick after all the kids go to bed" romp in the sack, because we're just too damn tired to do anything else.

I want the passion back! I want to stomp my feet and demand that old feeling back! I want to have my husband walk trough the door and want nothing more than to rip my clothes off. I want to go to a movie and not be able to keep our hands off of each other. I want to be a super charged sexpot again, but how?

It's hard to come to terms with a new life, a new you, and let me tell you this isn't all that new. It's been a number of years, but only now is it really starting to hit home. It's the fact that age, and motherhood has changed me, the sexpot, for good. Too bad really, because I used to be way more fun.

Run Patty, Run

2008-06-23T07:44:00.000-07:00

So my friends, here's the skinny. I have to come clean. I have to share with you in the honest hope that my personal trials, frustration, and anguish can help you understand yourself, and thus, my dear, dear compatriots, save yourself!

This weekend, I lay in bed, with tears of laughter leaking down my face, as my four-year old stood at the foot of the bed, half-naked, with her curly head stuck through the arm hole of her t-shirt, I had a shocking and terrifying realization--I'm not myself. Something in me has changed. That core, fundamental thing that made me, me, it's, well, not gone, exactly. More just, bent.

But what? What had caused this shift in my consciousness? When did it start? Could it be reversed? Would I reverse it, if I could? This, clearly, was going to take some brain power. The kind of brain power that can only be fueled by coffee. So up I got, put on a housecoat that looks only moderately less ragged than Osama Bin Laden's beard, untangled the t-shirt on a now furious, hysterical pre-schooler, and afixed my thinking cap. This was a question that was burning to be answered. I would get to the bottom of this issue. I mean, I was at stake!

After several cups of brain-builder (which, roughly, translates to 6 cups of coffee) I had a revelation, a breakthrough, an epiphany (and, honestly, some intense caffeine shakes)--I'm suffering from Stockholm Syndrome.

Yes! Stockholm Syndrome!! The amazing disorder in which normal, healthy, intelligent, and moderately attractive people, when taken captive, begin to identify with, and grow sympathetic to, their captors. I'm the Patty Hearst of parenthood!

I see the pattern now: we are quietly, happily, and freely going about our lives, planning to do things, and actually having the time to get them done. Eating in restaurants, going to the theatre, peeing in complete privacy, and, well, simply put, enjoying our lives. Then suddenly, there they are! These small, sleepless, loud, aggravating people. They burst in to our lives and homes surrounded by mess, and they make themselves at home. It's all so clear now.

We instantly become captive to these demanding, squalling, insistent little fungi. They may as well be holding a gun to our heads. We're trapped in the house, held hostage by these tiny tyrants. So what do we do? What can we do? We fall prey to Stockholm Syndrome. We start to relate to them, to empathize with them, to understand them, and I dare say, to love them. They recreate us in their image, and we're lost! We used to wake when our bodies told us too (when we'd had enough sleep--remember?!! Remember having enough sleep?! Sweet Jesus, what a dreamy notion), now, we wake to their military-like precision--6:30 a.m. on the dot! We used to watch intense, dark, and sometimes sexy foreign films, now, the only exposure we get to world culture is through Dora the Explorer (Hola!), and that girl is about as sexy as potato (though the monkey's not bad). We used to feel a sense of control over our future, now, we can't even get control of our hair!

So when, after 20 years of parenting, as I'm lying in bed, watching my youngest, naked from the nipples down, struggle with a piece of clothing, in a scene so comic as to be sitcom worthy, the blindfold is pulled from my eyes and I can see what's happened--I really have been kidnapped, and I've learned to live with it. I've learned to think and feel and relate to my knee-high captors. In fact, some days, (once, a couple of weeks ago, and maybe tomorrow) I've learned to love it.

Who knew that these grilled-cheese-eating-dirt-behind-the-ears-nose-picking terrorists were such masters of psychology!

I've been inculcated, my friends, but you don't have to be (well, actually, at this point, there's probably nothing you can do. If you're reading this and understanding even a third of what I'm saying, you're in too deep). You could try to fight the Stockholm Syndrome. You could be difficult, and fight the take-over. You could hold out for the cavalry to come and liberate you. But really, resistance is futile. Once you've invited them in, it's all over. Just roll with it baby. I mean, yeah, we've lost ourselves, our personalities, and, mostly, our will to live (with out Thai food), but maybe, just maybe, if I could get one of those cute hats and jumpsuits like Patty, it wouldn't be so bad!

These Kids

2008-06-23T07:07:00.000-07:00

This will probably make me sound a little ancient, but what the hell.

Lately I've been looking around at kids, wondering what the heck is going on. I see such a lack of respect, a lack of drive and disregard for themselves, community, family and everything else in general. Last night my husband and I sat up talking about this well past midnight. He's always the one that is more reasonable, the one that definitely sees all sides to an issue, so it was best for me to discuss this with someone who isn't as opinionated about things as I usually am.

What sort of sparked this was talking with friends of ours and hearing about a law that was recently passed, either in Canada or in Alberta, making it illegal to spank your own child. Sorry I am this ill informed, I rarely listen to radio or watch the news, terrible I know, but it's often just too disturbing and depressing. Not that I am an advocate of spanking or not spanking, really I just feel that should be left to the parent's discretion, and definitely shouldn't be up for public debate. Protecting children from certain harm is one thing, but when it over steps the boundaries into everyday people's lives I think it's too much.

Well this got us to talking last night about how we feel things are going in our own home and community. I'm seeing a huge upsurge of kids around our community, hanging around in large groups, getting into all kinds of trouble, wrecking personal property, drinking openly in public, and doing this without much regard for consequences. We live in a beautiful community, one where you would come into and think, not a lot of shit would go on here. Well it does, and no I don't live in a glass bubble, I do realize that bad things happen in all sorts of places, but it is still a bit surprising. Believe me I grew up in the hood, and stuff like this would have been surprising even there.

On Saturday afternoon we stood outside, on our front lawn as two young guys, probably no older than 17, wandered down a path, not far from our yard. They each had a beer in their hand and were hooting a hollering, waving at us, acting like jackasses (talk about sounding like I'm a hundred). Well as they were carrying on, an older couple walked past and the older man's demeanor was surprising, he seemed a little afraid. This kind of took me aback, as I remember how I felt as a teen and how I would never have been that blatant and disrespectful without being scared shitless of the consequences. These guys seemed like they could care less what anyone thought. In fact, they seemed to challenge the notion that anyone had a right to expect anything more from them.

I'm disturbed, I'm worried. Where does this leave our children in a few years? This generation just seems so disconnected, so unconcerned and unmotivated. I struggle with trying to understand where they are coming from, the ways in which they communicate with one another. They seem to spend more time talking with each other electronically rather than verbally, person to person, and through this something gets lost along the way. The human element of communicating changes, the climate of relationships has shifted and we are starting to see the runoff in other areas.

We are the generation of parents who have learned to give our children a voice, to let them have an opinion about what happens in their lives, their family's lives, and this has somehow backfired on us. We've tried to include our children in decision making. Giving them the feeling that their opinions are very valuable, they are, but to what end? We are now left with kids that feel they are entitled in every way. Entitled, because we've spent endless amounts of time instilling in them that they are unique, and important in every way. I am as guilty of this as anyone. And this, sadly was probably more magnified when I was a single parent.

I've wanted to give my kids a voice in their lives, because I never had one. I've wanted to give them opportunities that I didn't have, things that I didn't have, and now I'm left with kids that want, and expect, without regard. They really are good and respectful kids, but they have this underlying expectation that things they want or need should be provided, without question. And I have done this. Now I sit and try to figure out how do undo at least some of it.

Have we gone too far, and can we ever get back? I ask myself if past generations of parents, and grandparents felt like this. Did they fear that we to were going to be the lost generation, unable to cope or do things for ourselves? I don't think it could ever have been as bad as I've seen it get in recent past. Now we seem to be in some kind of a crisis, with kids video taping beatings of each other. Where will this go, how much further into chaos can we travel.

I'm curious about what other people are feeling, thinking and experiencing in respect to this issue. I hope we as a society can get a handle on these things, start to makes some serious changes and expect more of our children, communities and ourselves.

I just want to change your freakin' diaper!!

2008-06-20T11:17:00.000-07:00

Jesus Murphy, you'd think after literally 10,000 diaper changes over the course of 20 months, the kid would bloody well put two and two together. You come when you're called, lay down, lay still and just get the damn diaper change over with. But noooo. The little shit, full of shit, likes to take off running as soon as she gets a whiff that I am aiming to change her stinky ass. Who wants to sit in that stench anyway? Gross.

Then when I get her down on the floor, it's like trying to hold Linda Blair in place. Head thrashing, teeth bared, Jesus, her head practically spins completely around. For once I would like to get through a diaper change without sweating like a big fat man, wrestling a hog. It's like a WWE match, and I'm usually the big loser.

I guess it beats cleaning shit up off the floor, hey, there's always an up side. What would be even better, is if she'd just get potty trained already, yeah right!!

Belly Fat

2008-06-19T14:58:00.000-07:00

I know, we're all sick of hearing about each other's fat bums, saggy boobs, and all that shit, but let me back up here and explain. First of all let me scream, I am sick to death of having belly fat. I may have always had chunky thighs and ham arms, but I could always pride myself on having a nice flat tummy, yes, even after having a couple of kids.

Well my pride is now awash. After having a third child, and doing this after 35, I find my body is in revolt (and revolting for that matter). I don't know what the hell is going on, and it seems it is not only me...there are others out there suffering this same peculiar affliction. I've spoken to them, I've met them, I've even had the opportunity to see their belly dough from time to time. I might not watch everything I put into my face, but I work pretty hard physically, and it should count for something I would think. But no. No matter how hard I work, how much I sweat, this stuff stays put.

Now, why suddenly do you ask, am I shocked by this? Well it has kind of crept up on me, found a nice waist to cling to and has made itself at home. And I hate it, I want it gone. Short of having it sucked out, I am baffled at what to do. And yes I've heard you can dramatically alter what you carry around your middle by eating clean. Well let me tell you my friends, I am a dirty girl from way back, and there is no way I am cleaning up everything I eat, or drink. I've got to have a little joy in my life, and sometimes that just means a good bottle of wine and a pizza . So I guess it might just be here to stay.

Not only does this belly fat alter how you look, it can really change the way you feel. Now more than ever I feel a bit dumpy, a bit bumpy and frankly a little old momish. Well, I am aware that I am and old mom, but fuck, do I have to see it in every mirror or window I pass by?

Today I felt this more than ever. I took my daughter to have to top of her ear pierced and we had to go to a piercing, tattoo place to have it done. Well, we walk in and I kind of get a look from the young girl behind the counter, that says, "yeah, what do you want?". Then it hit me, I look like a middle aged mom, who's lost and wandering in for directions. I wanted to roll up my pant leg and say, "look I do belong here, I've had my fair share of visits to a tattoo parlor, probably had my first one when you were still in pre-fucking-school!!". But I couldn't of course, since I was standing there with my child. So, I explained why we were there, and we got on with our business.

This exchange just makes me realize how much I have changed, how much my body has changed, and in the end how it's made people see me. I don't wish to be twenty again, with a rock hard body (okay I am lying here, I do, I do), but I do wish I could feel that kind of confidence that came with strutting around when I was that age. Now I have to be conscious of sucking in my belly fat, being called ma'am and looking like a mom nearing forty. It sucks man.

I used to think I was pretty cool. Like I rode the back of the bus, flew by the seat of my pants. Now, not so much I guess. Instead, I sit closer to the front of the bus just in case I miss my stop and the seat of my pants, well, they're much larger than they used to be, and I've realized I'm a little afraid of flying. What can you do??

Despair

2008-06-19T09:39:00.000-07:00

Today I just want to give up. I want to slink home to my bedroom, turn off the lights and close the drapes and crawl under the covers. Maybe I will never come out again. I can't do this. I can't be a great mom and a brilliant employee and a loving, sexy partner all at once. I can't seem to get even one of them right, because when I try the other plates all drop. I am like the lame, creepy juggler at the carnival that everyone is embarrassed to watch because they know he is going to drop everything. I am tired and heart-wrenchingly sad and so desperate to just quit.

My Beautifuls

2008-06-18T10:51:00.000-07:00

I'm worn to a frazzle. Perhaps it's my own fault (well, no perhaps about it. Blame can be placed squarely in my corner, for first, having 5 kids--the last two when I was over 34, and second, for working full time--out of the home).

No matter how much I want to look polished and glamorous, walking briskly in to work in my red patent leather heels, swinging my perfectly worn brief case, I end up looking like a haggard, harried shell of a woman with a fragile hold on reality.

But I do have beauty in my life. And some days, for that, at least, I'm grateful.

My beautifuls.

My babies.

Of course, I'm not home from work yet. They're always more gorgeous from afar!

Exhaustion

2008-06-17T19:11:00.000-07:00

Exhaustion comes in all shapes and sizes. My source of exhaustion, I mean bone tired, can't move another muscle exhaustion, just happens to come disguised as a sweet little girl, all twenty five pounds of her. Oh my God, I don't know how I could ever have had two small children under two years old, and actually have managed.

Maybe my memory isn't that great, but truly, honestly, cross-my-heart, I never, ever, remember feeling this exhausted. By the time my first child was 20 months old, my second was five months old...I know, insanity. But for some reason, it worked, rather smoothly, and with relative order, most of the time. Now I have only one small person to contend with and I can't even seem to spend 10 consecutive minutes sitting for a meal.

It has to be something to do with age, and being too tired to really give a crap most of the time. Not like when I was in my twenties, and keeping things in control seemed to be so much more important, plus I guess I had the energy. I could hold out longer, put up with a hell of a lot more than I can now. Surprisingly, I think my patience may have been better (and really I'm not the most patient person in the world). I wanted to win then, be a really good mom, who did most things on some kind of a schedule. Now, I'm too tired to even think about planning a schedule, let alone carrying one out.

A number of my friends have had children after 35 and they all seem to concur, that the child or children they have after 35 seem to be a little more difficult to deal with. I guess if it's one's first child they don't really have anything to measure it by. It's not that I remember everything as being perfect, running smoothly all of the time. On the contrary, I was close to berserk those first three years or so, but man did I rule with an iron will, and fist.

Now my iron fist, has gotten a little fluffy and my will is waning. Mostly I'm too tired to argue too long, and frankly I can't stand the noise of it anymore. So, more often than not, I cave, I just give up. I feed my crazy child, spoonfuls of food as she zings by my chair. I don't often ensure that she has all of the food groups each day, I do my best but, mostly I am just freakin' happy that she has something in her tummy by bedtime.

Oh, my poor old body is getting tired. My arms feel like lead, my eyes are heavy by 8pm and the thought of picking up one more little disaster she has left behind makes me want to curl up into a ball and cry.

I don't know what I was thinking. Did I really believe that running around after another small child so many years after the first would be easy? I actually, do believe I was delusional enough to think, "come on, I've done it before, how much harder could it be now?" Well it is harder, much, much harder. Now my recovery isn't as quick, a couple of sleepless nights or in my case sleepless years really does a number on you.

Everyday I look in the mirror hoping things are going to start to look up, they don't. Instead I know another day is just around the corner, and by this time again tomorrow, I'll still be as exhausted as I am today.

Being a Mom

2008-06-16T22:52:00.000-07:00

You know, I never wanted to be known only as a mom. I promised myself when I had children that I would still be me, stay true to who I thought I was, and not turn into one of those pinched faced women who gossip over back fences. No, not me. I was going to stay cool, stay hip, stay young and with it...well as long as my hips stayed young that is. I never wanted the first thing that sprung to mind when people asked about me, was my children, but my children are always the first thing that comes into my head when someone asks about me.

It's funny really. I honestly fought the notion that being a mom would define me, but it has. It permeates my life, my artwork, my friendships, it is who I am, who I've become. Of course I still fight it sometimes, struggle against giving in to it, yet at the same time I can be nothing else if I am not a mom. Being a mother has made me who I am, which is not always good, and never ever perfect. It has left me feeling more human than I think anything else could.

I was a student once, a thinking, struggling student, who was hungry to learn. And at this same time I was still a mother. I remember the feeling I got when I was in University, and the students whom I was surrounded by were at least 10 yrs younger. I felt nearly invisible most of the time, unimportant, like my motherhood gave them license to feel my thoughts were no longer as valuable. I think that is when I probably clung most desperately to being a mother, when I realized what being a mother meant to my life.

I still don't want to be the kind of mom who has stopped her own life in lieu of her children's. I still want to feel like a woman, but I guess that it can no longer mean feeling like a woman without children. This can be terrifying some days. It's been so long I can't remember what I felt like when it was just me. When all I had to think about was what I needed or wanted. There are days when I long to really, truly remember those moments, and to have them again. But of course this would mean I was not a mother, and I can't picture that. For, I am a mother.

Being a mother, is nothing like I could ever have imagined. It is much harder, more joyous, way scarier than I could ever have been prepared for. Soon I will have spent more than half my life being a mother, more of my memories will be of my children, than of my youth.

Those early memories will fade, new ones will come, and in the end what I think about most is what it means for me, to be a mom. My youthful thoughts have been replaced. Now I think about how age, and experience has changed my vision of motherhood. How motherhood envelopes one's life, whether you want it to, or expect it to. I think about what little thought I had given to being a mother before I became one, and now being a mom I finally realize how it changes your life forever. For me, it has become who I am, rather than what I am.

Happy Father's Day, Mom

2008-06-13T14:57:00.000-07:00

So I don't have a father. I mean, strictly speaking, I have a father. But honestly, sperm donor is a much more adequate description, though cliched. He physically left when I was about 3 years old, but from what I can tell, he'd really left a long time before then.

I saw him once, again, when I was 18. And I called him to tell him I was pregnant, with my third child. After that, nothing. He has said, in no uncertain terms, that he doesn't give a rat's ass if I'm alive or dead, something along the lines of, "You're not my child."

So I don't have a father. Instead, I have a mother. She was it. She was my all in all. And, while she may have wobbled in some of the elements, she stuck the landing.

So this post is to say Happy Father's Day to all the moms doing it alone. Happy Father's Day to all the single moms struggling to raise their kids, make ends meet, and have a life. Happy Father's Day to those amazing women who find a way to be both parents to their kids.

But most of all, Happy Father's Day to my mom. You done good girl.

Where are Max and Ruby's parents?

2008-06-13T13:42:00.000-07:00

This isn't a new question, but having been subjected to several episodes of Max and Ruby over the last week, the answer is clear. They ran. They couldn't stand one more minute of their daughter's pedantic simpering and saccharine self-righteousness. The little bitch just doesn't shut up. And frankly, no parent should have to be constantly reminded of how wrong they may be doing things. They are the parents for fuck sakes! They have every right to be grumpy, hell, even screw up once in a while. But no, they have to have the high-pitched running parental commentary of a seven year old dremmelling into their brain. And really, when you have an over-functioning type-A little princess running things and constantly trying to parent her dim-witted and verbally challenged 3 year old brother, why stick around?

So, where are Max and Ruby's parents?
In Vegas, getting hammered and laid and trying to forget they have children at all.

Father's Day Shmother's Day

2008-06-13T13:20:00.000-07:00

Okay, okay, okay, I know I already sound like a bitch, but I guess we have to be open to equality here when it comes to acknowledging, made-up, useless, forced holidays like Father's Day and Mother's Day. It's just another opportunity to make us face our parenting ups and downs, measured of course by the kinds of cards and gifts we receive, if in fact we receive any at all.

Well, I'm glad to say that we have a fantastic dad in our house, I mean a fabulous, committed father. Made only more wonderful by the fact that he is a step dad to my children, but treats them as though they are his own. He doesn't differentiate, he makes good on any promise he makes to any of them, his biological children or non-biological children. He's a good man.

My children are lucky enough to have two father's in their lives. Their dad is also a big part of their lives, the fun parts only of course. He doesn't have to worry about whether one of them needs to get to the doctor, the dentist, the orthodontist, a guitar lesson or anything else that requires him not having fun. Instead he usually holds off and sees them when it's a weekend preferably a long weekend, and he will pick them up at a lesson, if I get them there, barring there is no rush hour traffic for him to fight. Fuck, fuck, fuck, he's a gem!

So now I get to the real point. What constitutes a father? Is it simple biology, or is it measured by the same sort of investment mother's make to their children? It just really pisses me off that the man who stood their while I pushed his gigantic headed children out of my body, now barely knows them. And honestly doesn't even seem to give a shit that he is losing them, that they are slowing sliding out of his grip. They'll soon stand before him virtual strangers, and it will be too late.

He stopped over today and gave me this long winded description of how disappointed he is in our son. Apparently he has a bad attitude. God, that's hard to say, our son. Sometimes it feels as though the kids have only always been mine, where he's concerned, and now suddenly, he's fucking disappointed. Give me a break.

What does he expect, that he has been able to slip in and out of the kids lives like a dream and now he should be the centre of their universe? I highly doubt that will be the outcome.

We as mother's spend our days, our lives as parents, being parents. Yes, there are also plenty of father's out there who give and do as much as any mother, my husband honestly being one who is very, very committed. I guess I am just furious that their biological dad is given the title, and gets to share in much of the great stuff when he falls short in so many other areas.

Now my son, our son, gets to spend part of Father's Day with his dad. It's great, I'm glad they get to do this. But now this young boy is being put in a position that I was put in with my mother as a child so many times. He'll be expected to hand over a card, say the right things, and feel the right things, because this holiday says so. Does he feel them? I don't really know, I do know he loves his dad, but is growing increasingly further from him everyday. I just think it is unfair that we are made to feel things about these made-up holidays, that more often than not point out that we are just not cutting the mustard as parents, or kids.

Anyway, in light of my own bitterness...I do hope everyone is with someone they love this weekend, father or not.

It is so fucking unfair

2008-06-13T10:39:00.001-07:00

There are so many tragedies of divorce. It was the single most difficult thing I have had to do in my life to decide to end our nuclear family, knowing that I would not see my children all of the time. I spend those days without them aching for them, missing them so deeply and completely that I feel physical pain. But here is the true tragedy; regardless of how much I missed them, how much they missed me, as soon as we are together we step right back into the function and dysfunction of a 'regular' family. It can be literally within minutes of seeing them again that we have fallen into the patterns of sibling fights and parental frustration, of not listening and consequences, of "but its not my mess' and 'because I said so'. And I am so sad and so angry. Shouldn't we all be on our best behaviour? Shouldn't we recognize how precious and tenuous our time is? And I feel that it is all of us. I know that I can set the expectation and the mood and influence much of the interaction, but I can't do it all. And mostly I fuck it up. They are girls and they at the age where they are needing to challenge and they are aware and yet unaware of the role they play in the family. I am so desperately sad that this is what our time has become and I can't help believing it would be different somehow if we were in a nuclear family.

Blowing the Lid Off This Thing!

2008-06-13T09:28:00.000-07:00

I'm a mother, so naturally I believe in conspiracy theories. I mean, come on....there's no possible way there was a single shooter in that library annex. And, find me someone in the western world who didn't think that those first American moon landing photos looked like they were taken on a Hollywood back lot? I dare you to try to convince me that Kentucky Fried Chicken doesn't add some kind of ingredient that makes it irresistible? And really, the world is round? I wanna know who perpetuated that doozy?

But easily, the most shocking, yet under reported and least discussed conspiracy of them all is, "The Motherhood Mood." Some one, some where (I don't want to point fingers or name names, but my investigations have led me to believe that this destructive dialog was started by someone with a penis) created a myth that really pisses me off: mothers are all deliriously happy to, first, be pregnant, then to give birth, and finally, to have our lives, our thoughts, our hopes, dreams, needs, and desires eternally altered. In short, we aren't allowed to say we're angry, disappointed, lonely, frustrated, sad, or just plain pissed. We've been robbed of our right to the honest expression of our feelings. We've been made into the Stepford Moms.

So I'm going to shatter the conspiracy, at great personal risk (in fact, as I sit here typing, I expect the CIA or CSIS to break down the door, unplug my keyboard, and slap my hand.)

This myth is so deeply entrenched in our psyches that our greatest oppressors are ourselves, and each other. Woman against woman (and not in the porn mud wrestling pit way, either. This is worse). We find little ways to diminish each other--we judge each other by our children's progress. Come on, you've been there. When one of your sisters, or friends, or even your mother says, "Frankie's not potty trained?! Oh. Too bad! I'm so lucky! Jocelyn was completely trained by the time she was 19 months. Oh yeah...even night-trained. She was so easy! Are you giving him stickers? Oh, well, I'm sure he'll do it someday."

Or, we judge each other's decision to stay home or work. This can be cruel and particularly vicious. Some how, if I decide to work, I must be making the statement that my needs are more important than my kids, and that being at home isn't good enough for me, and that I think I'm more enlightened than a stay-at-home mom, thus it threatens women who decide to stay at home. Alternately, if you decide to stay at home, you must be making some comment on my commitment to my children, and how much of a better mother you are for sacrificing everything you need for your kids (and you never complain because that would undermine your position). It also must suggest that my working somehow threatens you and makes you less valuable to society.

Or, what about, when we get together and we rake our eyes over each other to assess hairstyles, fashion, manicures, and tan lines--and that's just after we've checked out each others kids. My critical eye hasn't fallen on the mom yet! What kind of stroller do you push? What's your opinion on cloth or disposable? Do you have them in soccer, guitar, gymnastics, painting? And are you coaching or teaching any of these activities?

What's happened to us? Why do we do this to ourselves and each other? Who robbed us of our voices and why aren't we fighting to get them back? Every one else, every one else, on the planet whines, snivels, and cries about their jobs and their responsibilities--from my kindergartener to the President of the United States. But not us moms. Any expression that things aren't just 100% super-peachy-keen-super-awesome-fantastic and we're letting the world down. It's a conspiracy I tell you!

When I express my dissatisfaction with being a mother, a working mother, a working mother and wife, people are shocked and horrified. I once told my mother-in-law that while I loved my family deeply, they just weren't enough. They simply didn't complete me. She just sat there in horror looking at me as if I'd just grown a third boob.

I want to say, without fear of reprisal (from other moms or some secret CIA agency):

Why don't men hear a sick child during the night?
Why does the responsibility for dentist appointments fall to me?
If I have to tell him that he needs to pick up diapers on the way home from work, I might as well just do it myself!
I'm angry that my husband can walk away from the house and our family, and not worry that things will get done and people will be taken care of.
I want to weep and pummel my husband (not necessarily in that order) when, at 3:00 AM I have to (again) tell him that no, he can't actually put the pillow cases and sheets full of vomit straight in the washing machine, while I'm sitting with a 4 year old who's puking in a bucket (and all over me).
Why does gender define the household chores? It makes me crazy that vagina=cooking and cleaning toilets and penis=snow shoveling and washing the car.
I'm lonely and tired, and I hate that I have nothing of my own!! Nothing!
I can't bear being responsible for everything! The weight is too much. Sometimes I feel so heavy from everyone's expectations that I can barely move my limbs.
I just wanna take a pee all by myself--no company, no interruptions, no fingers under the door, and no frantic knocking shouting about how bad they gotta go. Just me, my bladder, and a People magazine!

So every mom, every where, throw off the shackles of this conspiracy! It doesn't make you a BAD MOMMY to say, "Today, I was a bad mommy, and, yah know, it wasn't too bad!" Or, "Oh, just screw it! If I have to go to one more f#*&ing PTA meeting I'm going to hurt somebody." Or, "You work out, I work in, what the hell, we both work--let's get drunk!" Or better yet, "Honey, if you have kids and can manage to brush your teeth in the morning and get the little beggars to school less that 15 minutes late, you are the Martha Stewart of parenthood! Good on ya! Now go congratulate yourself with a scotch!"

Wipe that frozen, icy Jesus-I-love-every-single-little-thing-about-my-life smile (that doesn't reach any where near your wild trapped-in-this-life eyes) off your face and let's overthrow this conspiracy. The Stepford Moms may have great hair, but girls, nice hair won't give you a tenth of the satisfaction you'll get when you tell your husband that you hate cleaning the goddamn toilets, so for the rest of your parenthood together, every Saturday he can clean those greasy receptacles and make sure the kids get lunch, 'cause you'll be at the car wash for two hours (because, that's just how long it takes!).

Where the hell is IT?

2008-06-11T13:46:00.000-07:00

And no I am not talking about my groove thing...frankly I'm too damn tired from looking for my family's shit to even thing about any kind of a groove thing!! Not only am I constantly looking for other people's crap, I am losing almost anything I put down and walk away from. I am starting to think there is an evil conspiracy in my house...someone trying to make me look crazy enough to have me committed? Maybe. Wouldn't blame them of course.

Anything from, books, shoes, underwear, coats...the list is truly endless. Sometimes my loving family even has the audacity to call me when I've had the opportunity to escape briefly, to ask me if I've seen their shit!! And if I have, could I please, please, please let them know where it is and then remember that too. I am sort of pointing fingers here, mostly at my husband. Apparently the man can remember just about anything, except for where he puts stuff. Meaningless stuff mostly, but somehow he thinks I have this Rain man sort of thing going on when it comes to remembering asinine things, like where people put their gloves. Well at least I'm good for something, I guess.

On the other hand I can't remember where I've put anything myself, at any given moment. Be it, my now, ice cold cup of coffee, or my keys, which I only use about three thousand times a day. I misplace them...every sickening time I walk away. I am almost always completely unable to remember why I've entered a room, or why I've gone upstairs or downstairs. I am beginning to get a little worried, so you must understand my thoughts on a conspiracy here, right?

I think on average I spend at least 60% of my day looking for stuff, and I mean really earnestly looking. No wonder I can barely get anything else done around here. Well losing shit, trying to find it, and blogging are probably equal contributors to my issue. It's just that one is so much more enjoyable than the others.

Some days I just picture myself sitting cross legged in the middle of the living room. Waiting for someone, anyone, to help me find the stuff I am in search of, maybe at the same time they could help me find my sanity?

It's Been a Dry Coupla Seasons

2008-06-11T07:22:00.000-07:00

How I miss my husband. Back in the day, way, way, back in the day, we used to be good friends, and man, did we have fun together. We'd go hiking, camping, climbing. We'd do crosswords together stretched across the living room floor, read the paper together on Saturday mornings, mix each other dirty martinis, with 7 olives each, go dancing at least once a week and drink jugs and jugs of sweet, tangy Sangria, and have crazy foreign film festivals in the bedroom, eating Chinese, Vietnamese, or German take-out on top of the blankets.

And we had sex. Did we have sex! Mad, delicious, breathtaking sex. On the covers, under the covers, standing up, sitting down, in the shower, in the bath, the kitchen, the basement, the living room floor with the curtains open. Once, twice, and during the film festivals, sometimes five times a day. Just watching him walk, seeing his legs or back or stomach made my heart (and parts somewhat lower) clench and ache. I wanted to touch him all the time. Even doing the dishes together was sexy. The promise of wet hands and soft soapy bubbles.......

Now? Yeah. Now. Not so much.

Now? It's been a dry coupla seasons. The closest I get to spending any of the precious time we used to have together is watching him hike a screaming preschooler to her room for a time-out, or seeing him cornered at the kitchen table doing math homework, or when he's downing a cup of scalding coffee before running the next kid to the next lesson. And film festivals? At best, it's Finding Nemo with take-out pizza, and 5 twitchy kids. I only catch a glimpse of my still sexy husband as he's carrying a load of laundry downstairs, or reading a bedtime story, or drying off some little, chubby body, that's not his own (damn, damn, double-damn! Toweling off was always one of my favorite spectator sports!)

And as far as sex, were lucky if we get to do the silent, three-minute bump-and-grind once a month. Under the covers. In the dark. And way, way past bedtime. Now, I know what you're thinking! It's pretty shocking. I can hardly believe it myself....we're SILENT!

Absolutely silent sex. No heaving, heavy breathing. No gasping, panting, swearing, imploring, or grunting. Just tight-lipped silence. In fact, I think we might both hold our breath the entire time (we may not get a lot of exercise, but these monthly trysts are certainly increasing my lung capacity). We bonk in fear that, 1. the kids will hear, and 2. the kids will hear and subsequently wake up and ruin what might be an adequate nights sleep! And as any sane mother knows, sleep before sex, sleep before sex!!

I just wanna throw off the shackles of motherhood (and throw the shackles on my husbands wrists). The damn kids not only took my body, took my time, and took my money, they took my groove thing!!

So, I'm going to employ a tactic I've noticed has worked very effectively for my children. When in a particularly sensitive location, like, a parent-teacher interview or the Christmas concert or a birthday party at McDonald's, for instance, I'm going to have a world-class, eardrum-shattering tantrum:

I WANT MY GROOVE THING BACK!!! IT'S JUST NOT FAIR!!!! EVERYBODY AT WORK HAS A GROOVE THING!!! I WANT ONE TOO!!! I WANT MY GROOVE THING BACK!!! I WANT IT BACK!!!! YOU SAID!!!

I'll let you know how it works for me. And if you happen to find yourself in the same locale as me when I am implementing my plan, please, for my sake, and the sake of all of us, and your future ability to get jiggy with it, join in. Our future sex lives depend upon it!

Girls to Women

2008-06-10T11:03:00.000-07:00

Lately I've been doing a fair bit of reading on mothering. Not the kind of reading that is instructional, I can barely follow a bloody recipe, so I can't imagine the pressure of trying to follow rules on how to be a better mother. Plus I am reasonably lazy and I think, having had three children, all of whom have survived so far, I must be doing something right. They may need years of therapy, but hey, no one's perfect.

The reading I have been doing is mostly on how women view motherhood, relationships with their children, and how women are viewed from the general public, once they become mothers. I have been focusing in on mother/child relationships, probably because I no longer have a relationship with my own mother. I am, to say the least, worried, worried about how my relationship, or lack there of with my own mother, will affect my relationship with my children, my daughters in particular. I know, I know, there is always so much of a focus placed on mother/daughter relationships and mother/son relationships tend to seem as though they are overlooked.

This is definitely not the case. I have spend equal amounts of time dissecting my mothering and my relationship with both my son and daughters...it's just that I find it curious that most women who have daughters have the same fears I do. Will we have a good, decent relationship when they are grown? How will our later relationship play out? With my son, I don't seem to have these concerns, at least not yet. We are close, he seems strong, confident and sure of who he is and where he belongs in the world, although he is just a mere twelve years old.

My eldest daughter is the opposite unfortunately, and for this I am concerned. She seems to be much less self-assured, afraid to be who she wants to be. I am not sure whether this is simply a product of culture, home environment or in born personality. I have always thought we have given the two older kids anyway, a chance to be who they are, regardless of what anyone else thinks. I have as strong a relationship with her as well. I guess my biggest fear is that somehow along the way it is going to become frayed, tarnished somehow. I understand that of course I am a much different parent than my own mother was able to be, but the fear still draws me in.

As women raising daughters we are often made to feel like we have to force some kind of separation, push them to be strong, at the same time we push them away from us. Why is it that we want strong , confident young women to emerge, but the only way we seem to know how to do this is by severing the attachment to mother somehow? I shouldn't generalize I guess. It's just in asking a number of other moms who are raising girls if they have ever felt this way, the answer is often yes. This has caused much confusion for me, where I am not sure how or why I need my daughter to feel this kind of separation. I read this passage recently and it sums things up quite nicely.

Separation and autonomy are not equivalent: a person need not separate from mothers emotionally to be autonomous. Under the dominion of experts, mothers are urged to create a separation and disconnection from daughters that their daughters do not want. Early childhood and adolescence are the two stages of life where separation has been decreed as imperative to the independence and autonomy of children. To mother "right", women disconnect from their daughters and begin to see them as society will. Rather than strengthen girls this breach of trust leaves girls weakened and adrift.

-Elizabeth Debold, Marie Wilson, and Idelisse Malave

I guess what I want most for her, for all of them really, is to be able to know and understand who they are, and why they make the choices they do. I have been a good mother, a good female role model to all of them, I think. Probably what stumps me the most is that I have not been shown how to do it, how to let my children follow my lead, and feel confident about what I offer them. It is enough, will it prepare them for what they will need as they become adults? And in this will our relationships stay strong, or will I continue to try to separate in the name of independence? I hope I do not. Though I do hope more than anything, that they will want for themselves all that I want for them. To know that they are worthy of the kind of happiness that fills their lives up.

I want to be able to balance these lessons as their mother, to stay connected and not feel this pull do force them away from me. Sometimes I wish I could be guided, that there were clear rights and wrongs. That when mistakes are made they don't come back to haunt you years later, which of course they do.

All I hope for is that my girls, and my boy, will know I did the best I could, and that I was always interested in doing better. I wanted to learn more about how to make things different for them than they were for me. And that above all, I've loved them, every agonizing step of the way.

Attack of the Killer Muskrats

2008-06-09T15:06:00.000-07:00

Aaaarrrrrgggghhhhhhhh!!!!

I know. I know! Stay-at-home parenting is the hardest, most thankless job on the planet, and stay-at-home mom's deserve the $130,000 odd dollars a year for everything they do. I know. I know!

I have a solid 12 years of the job myself! I did it all, and often all alone.

So when I went back to work, about 8 months ago, it was purely because if I had to volunteer one more time at pre-school, go on one more play date with a mom I could barely tolerate, exchange brownie recipes one more time, or be scorned by some group of anal, twittering woman at the Mommy and Me Club, while their precious little gnats terrorized one of my kids, one more goddamn time, I was going to commit a highly dangerous and likely illegal act (I had fantasies of running around pell mell punching every single well-groomed, pasty-smiled mom right in the nose and relishing the veritable blood fountain I'd created). In other words, I went back to work to save my sanity, and prevent future jail-time.

But, here I am, at work, with crushing deadlines, a psychotic boss, and more hours of overtime than I'll be able to fit into one day, and I know that when I get home I'll still have to do the "housekeeping, cooking, laundry, driving kids around, and managing the household."

My life's a mess (Literally. I mean, you should see my dust bunnies. No. Not bunnies. These babies have graduated from dust bunnies to dust muskrats. In fact, if I don't vacuum, I sure that one of these days, one of these monsters is going to consume my 4 year old.)

Now, the obvious question is, "What about your husband? Doesn't he help?" Well, yeeeessss. Kinda. He's a good man, and I love him, but he can't even fold a dishtowel. He burns or spills nearly everything he cooks. And it takes him roughly three hours to sweep and wash the kitchen floor, during which time, if anyone, anyone makes a move toward the kitchen he gets agitated, then he and the mop start twitching and the speckles of moisture start to fly (some from the mop, but most from his heaving jaws! Which, needless to say, creates more of a mess for me to clean up--plus it takes the rest of the day to help the kids recover from their post-traumatic mop disorder.)

I know the debate is hot and heavy--working moms versus stay-at-home moms. Each group staunchly in their corners, defending their right to do the job they think serves them and their family best (It's the one's that try to tell me what's best for me and my family that really get my blood boiling. Not that I'm cowed! When your kids wake up Saturday morning and cry because it's not a daycare day, you feel pretty comfortable that the preachy-holier-than-thou-stay-at-home-mom-moms, or vice versa--I've been on both sides of the debate--don't have a sturdy leg to stand on). However, I don't want to wade into those waters right now (I'm too damn busy!), but sister, let me tell you. It ain't easy being a working mom either.

Even though my brain is fried, and dinner is fried, and the vacuum will be fried (when I finally try to tackle those muskrats lurking under the furniture and behind doors), I value my ability to forge a life for myself. And really, with me as their mother, one way or another, whether I stay home with them, or work, their going to need therapy, at least this way, I'll be able to pay for it.

Just Eat and Jiggle

2008-06-08T15:57:00.000-07:00

God, my body is so not like it used to be... before I had kids. And to think I used to bitch and complain about a dimple here and ripple there. What I would give now to have a third of the muscle tone, and the semi-smooth skin that once covered my ever growing thighs.

I used to turn around and around in the mirror just to find imperfections. Now all I have to do is quickly swing my head to look, and gravity takes over. I am suddenly able to see my back-half without even turning around.

I truly had no idea skin could hold so much loose matter together, without it dropping completely to my ankles. The little bit of muscle tone I once had is a distant memory, and believe me I never had that much. Now I can hold up the loose skin that holds my chub together and it kinda looks smooth and somewhat taut....well it's just an illusion, but whatever it takes to get me through the day.

The other morning, I got out of the shower and just for fun I thought I would see how all of my hard work is paying off, bad idea. Don't try this at home, anyone, ever. I stood there, full length image of my own naked body staring back at me, stood, feet planted, and jiggled, and jiggled...and jiggled. Holy shit, nothing could have prepared me for what I saw. It is kind of like taking a mirror and looking at your freshly, just gave birth vagina, terrifying to say the least.

What do I have to do to get this stuff to firm up, or at least slow down in fleshy-jello department?

So I've decided the only thing left for me to do is , accept this, yes accept it. In the meantime I am going to keep on eating, enjoying wine...and above all keep jiggling!!

I Was a Young Mom Once, Honest!!

2008-06-07T14:32:00.001-07:00

Hard to believe, when I look in the mirror at the end of a long day, that I was once a young fresh-faced mom, with energy abound. Now thirteen-some-odd years later, I am a somewhat new mom again, to a third child (my lovely twenty month old daughter). Only now I have more wrinkles, more grey hair and more stretch marks than you can shake a stick at. And yes, I have less energy, less patience and I am quickly losing ground on all I thought I knew as a young mom.

I'm not sure whether it was pure naivety or just youth that got me through, virtually unscathed with my first two. Now, many years later, everything I thought I knew, I have to relearn. And I am tired, really tired.

There are days when I sit and observe new , young moms, obviously with their first child. Both well dressed, hair neatly coiffed, with their sweet sing-song voices, trailing after their lovely rosy-cheeked children. You rarely, if ever, hear them snarling at their sweet angels, to "please, bloody-well behave themselves". Instead they ask, repeat, and then go through all of , by the book steps, in order to get their child to comply with their loving request.

Then, spot the experienced moms, they are recognized from a mile away. Usually frazzled, with hair half hanging out of their onion elastic pony-tail holder. Which of course is all they could find since their wonderful babes took what was left of their good elastics, for science projects, themselves or to use as weapons against each other. The sing-song voice has turned into a hoarse shriek that could paralyze the deaf. And finally, their wardrobe consists mostly of clothes which their children are most definitely mortified by. The last, only because they have not a spare moment to replace what they have been hanging onto for years, and the thought of shopping with a small child could break even the most seasoned shoppers.

Well I am no longer a young mom, I think they now refer to us as mature mothers. Women who have been crazy enough to have a child after 35. Whether it is a first child, a third, fourth or fifth, that you have after this golden age, it is much different than parenting in your twenties.

When you are in your late thirties or in your forties, you now know what life is about, you've become slightly more selfish about your time ( what little you have). You, in other words, know what you are missing. Quiet afternoons enjoying a good book, uninterrupted. A long bath, without an audience. All of those things we took for granted before we had kids, or at least when our first batch of kids were independent enough to know when to leave us the hell alone, and before we'd decided to try this new-parent thing all over again.

Don't get me wrong, I am thrilled to be experiencing parenting from a whole new perspective, it's just that I kinda miss being that young fabulous mom, I think I was??

The Price of a Mother

2008-06-06T12:50:00.000-07:00

"The services of the average stay-at-home mom- including housekeeping, cooking, doing laundry, driving kids around, and managing the household- would amount to an annual income of $138,095."— Salary.com

Sent in by Edie, Thanks.

Say What?!

2008-06-06T12:31:00.000-07:00

So, wanna hear a regular conversation I continue to have with people? All people. People I know but haven't seen for a while, people who are complete strangers to me, people I'm related to and have known me since before I had pubic hair?

This isn't a topic I choose to discuss, and honestly, would rather not hear people's deeply held convictions about, but telling the cashier at Safeway or the preschool teacher or my aunt to shut the f@#* up, and mind their own damn business tends to create difficulties in my daily life--like bad service or having the dogs set on me. So I do what other good, polite Canadian girls do. I smile, nod my head, and at the soonest possible moment, I change the subject.

So, what, you ask, is this mystery topic? Well, for anyone who has more than 2.5 kids, this is going to sound familiar, but for the rest of you, listen up, and listen good:

"Oh. Are these all you children?! All of them. I mean, your actual children?" Now, as a point of fact they are my biological children--meaning I did squeeze them out of my body, every single one of the little termites, and I have the saggy vagina to show for it--but does it never occur to these vapid dunces that even if I'd adopted every single one of them they'd still be my actual children!

I nod my head as my eyes glaze, "Yes, they're my children. Mmmhmmm, all 5 of them." Then, it comes. The real kicker (and there's always a good chance that the next person who says this to me is going to be the kickee!), "You do know what causes it, don't you?! Tee hee hee!"

Now, how do I adequately answer this inane question?

"Yes. Yes I do know what causes it. Thanks for inquiring."
"Ummm, actually, just between you and me, I've never figured it out. Why? Can you tell me? Why does it happen? Why do I have so many, and is there a way to stop having more?!"
"Yes I do. Would you like me to explain it to you?"
"Well, what happens is this: when sexually aroused, a man's penis engorges with blood causing an erection. When erect, a penis can enter a woman's vagina, preferably lubricated. Then through a series of thrusts and parries, often accompanied by grunting, the man ejaculates semen, a viscose liquid, which carries sperm, into his female partner. At which point....."

I'm tired of this. I'm really tired of it. Whether they were all planned or all accidents, whether they have five different fathers or one father is nobodies business. I don't want to hear the political argument that it's someone's business because they pay school tax or medical premiums which support my kids, or the social argument that the world is overpopulated and I'm being reckless. Really? Really? What can you say to that? Detail the list of things that we all pay taxes for? Point out who'll be the tax payers when these nosy bastard are decrepit? Ask for a detailed account of what they own, what they drive, what they smoke, where they go and how they get there? Honestly, hypocrisy is not only sad, it's rather funny. Poor little meddling pea-brains.

What is it about becoming a mother that makes you public property? It starts when we're pregnant. As soon as a woman is showing, everyone, Everyone, starts to touch. Poking and prodding and patting, like your a bloody loaf of bread. With the touching, comes a sense of ownership that gives these interlopers the self-proclaimed permission to counsel, advise, and just plain boss.

Now, I can grasp that in this day and age, 5 kids seems outrageous, maybe selfish, or maybe selfless, but unless we give each other the permission to invade each other's personal lives and space about everything--"Oh, are you going to eat both those cheeseburgers? or "Gee, you have tiny little breasts," pat, pat, pat or "Oh my God, you stink of B.O. do you know what deodorant is?" or "You do know you're stupid, don't you? Tee hee hee!"--people should just tuck their lower lips around their tiny little heads, and leave me, my kids, and my uncontrollable libido alone!

Or, they could be honest, and say what they're really thinking, "What are you, crazy?" At least, then, we'd agree on something!

Things I've Learned

2008-06-05T13:24:00.000-07:00

Boy, there's a whole lot of things I've learned, somethings useful, others, not-so-much.

I've learned from some wise old women (namely our mothers), never to test for a shitty bum by sticking your index finger into the side of a squirmy child's diaper. You're liable to come out with a finger full of the good stuff. Sniff instead. It might look bad, but hey would rather have a finger covered in shit?

Never, ever brag or appear to brag about how well your sweet little muffin sleeps through the night. This will only a guarantee that they will not sleep through the night again until they are in grade 6.

Never let your children think you are too flexible, no matter the age (this includes newborns). If they even get a whiff of flexibility, they are going to make you bend. Forwards, backwards, even inside-out, and they'll get all sorts of pleasure out of it.

Try not to, for even a second, think your child is incapable of certain questionable things. They are swift, cunning little creatures, who delight in our inability to believe they are anything but perfect (come on, we've all been there, with little Tommy's mom, who says her child couldn't possibly do something like that).

Finally and most importantly (at least to my sanity these days), never test a 20 month old. Walk on egg shells if you must in order to get through the day (this is one thing that overrides the flexibility rule). Give in, feed them lollipops, Popsicles, do whatever it takes to keep the little beggar from putting you into a straight jacket before your time.

I hope this helps! If anyone has any other wonderful words of encouragement, please share. And if it is only to tell us how fabulous and stress free it is raising your children, keep it to yourself (haha).

Darlene and Gloria

2008-06-05T09:46:00.000-07:00

"Helllou....Oh, hiya Honey. How you doin' today? Mmmm, he did? He said that? What's wrong with men? Does all that play fighting when they're young knock their damn brains around 'til they just loose inside their skull? Sometimes, they're just as thick as fence-posts! I know just how you feel. Why just yesterday, after I got back from having my nails done, Harvey said to me....Oh, my, just hang on a minute...what's that Georgie? Oh My God. I gotta go Gloria. Georgie just had a big number 2, it's kinda leaking out his diaper....oooooo, I really gotta run. He's making little poo tracks down the hall. STOP! GEORGIE!! STOP MOVING!! GEORGIE! YOU STOP RIGHT THIS MINUTE!!! I'll call you back, sweetie."

"Hi Gloria, it's just me again. Do you have a few minutes? I've got to tell you the craziest story. Yeah. Good. Grab a coffee because this may take a little bit. Mmmm, yah real cream in coffee is soooo gooood. What kind do you use? Oooooooo, Honey, I like the sound of that! Whaddya call it again? Yeah, save me the tin so I can see the label. Oh. Yeah. The poo.

Well, anyway, after I hung up, I chased Georgie down the hall. He'd made it to our room and was trying to pull himself up on our bed. I'm going to have to wash all the sheets now, and I just did them 2 days ago, oh and our drier's on the fritz so I have to line dry 'em, and it's suppose to rain today. Goddamn! And why my side of the bed anyway? It's the farthest away from the door?

So anyway, Honey, I dragged him off to the bathroom to change him, and he's kicking and screaming. He just hates to be changed now. Ever since he started walking he's a fiend. He twists and arches and kicks. It's awful, and when I'm frustrated it's even worse. I just want to let the little bugger sit in it, you know? Or conk him on the noggin to get him to shut up and lay still long enough for me to get the job done.

So, like I said, I drag him off to change him, and I just get him laid down and I got a clean diaper and those nice smelling Johnson's wipes....mmmhhmmm, them flushable ones. Makes it so much easier just to flush them than to think about poopy wipes sitting in the kitchen garbage. Pardon Honey? Oh yeah, me and Harvey got one of those diaper pails, but Harvey hates all that twisting, and he thinks it's just stupid to have to buy special little bags for the damn thing, so it's sitting outside the backdoor with the snow shovel, rake, and the old handle and float from the upstairs toilet we had to replace in June. That man never cleans up anything.

Anyway, I've just got Georgie down, and I had to lay him on a towel! There was no way I wanted poo on the bathroom carpet. We just had that replaced. So, like I said, I was just undoing the pull-tabs when he kicks me real hard, right between the boobs. Well I'm just trying to catch my breath and hold him down, 'cause he's squirming like a demon now and the diaper is half off. All this wet poo is dripping and little bits are flying everywhere. Well, I just yell at him to lay still and grab him, but he wiggles and I get a handful of the diaper. So now I have poo all over my hand, and Gloria, Honey, it was under my fingernails. Now that's just horrible. Isn't it? So I'm gagging as I get a good hold of him and lay him flat, I think I kinda scared the little bugger, 'cause he started crying. And the doorbell rings.

Well, I hate not to answer the door, and I was expecting an Avon delivery, yeah, Honey, that Peachy Keen lipstick that Joyce has, mmmmhhmmm. I do love that color. So I quickly wipe up Georgie and run my hands under the tap. 'Course he's not completely wiped. You know that little spot right under their scrotum, where you have to move the little sack back and forth to get it real clean? It's still not clean, and I can smell that he's still kinda foul, so I put him in his crib for a bit and run to answer the door.

Well, it's not the Avon lady. It's the Jehovah's. Sweet Jesus those people show up at the worst times. Anyway, I am standing there trying to nicely get the old broad to go away, smiling and nodding. Well she's going on and on about, 'Aren't things different than when we were kids? Things are so much harder for kids nowadays. Don't you agree? Well, you know what the problem is? Do you know the culprit?' And I'm just nodding and shaking my head, sorta leaning on the door so it's closing ever-so-slowly, and she says, 'The very thing that's exposing our kids to the dangers of Satan is the.......SINternet. They call it the information super-highway. But it's only the super-highway to HELL!!!!'

And all this time, I can smell poop. I look down at my blouse and there's none there, then I look at my hands, but I got most of it off when I washed, only the stuff under my fingernails was still there. So I sniffed my hands, kinda secretly so the Jehovah lady didn't suspect anything, you know, I sorta pretended my nose was itchy, and well, they smelled more like my rose-scented soap than poop, but I figured where else could the smell be coming from. Well, the Jehovah lady is trying to get me to take that Watch Tower magazine-thingy so I can read about the evils of the Sinternet and how if I come to a church meeting on Wednesday night I can learn how to stop Satan's network.

So Georgie starts screaming now, so I tell the lady that I really gotta go get my kid, and thanks for the magazine-thingy, and I was busy Wednesday night, but thanks for the offer anyway, and I shut the door. I guess I closed it kinda quick, because it created quite a breeze and I got a strong smell of poo again. So I smelled my hands again, and they seemed okay, though I had to scrub under my nails. And I just had them done the other day! Plus, I'll have to bleach the nail brush, and who knows how many of them little bristles will fall out. I'll probably have to buy another one. Oh, yeah?....They come in lavender? Where? Where did you find a nail brush in lavender? That would go so nice with my bathroom. I can only ever find them wooden handled ones. Where? Mmmhmmmm, I shoulda known Wal-Mart would have something smart like that. I'm not even gonna bleach the old one. I'm just gonna run out and get a new lavender one.

Anyway, so I go get Georgie out of his crib, and he's good and mad. So I give him a cookie, just to hush him up and run him a bath. No way I was tryin' to wipe him anymore. I'm not risking getting kicked again, that little spot right between my boobs still hurts. Anyway, I get him undressed and in the tub, and I dump in his toys. Finally, he's quiet. But, Lord have mercy, I can still smell poo. I grab the nail brush and start scrubbing. When I'm all clean, no more poop under my nails, I take a nice long smell of my hands. Lovely. But just after my big last whiff, I catch a smell of poo again. It's starting to really make me mad now.

I'm getting to it, Gloria. Hold your panties on.

Well, I look in the mirror to fix my hair, and whaddya know. There, right on the end of my nose, is a big old spot of dried poop. Yup. Right on the end. About the size of a pea. Stop giggling Gloria, you're getting me started. Well, I start to laugh until I remember that I musta stood there for 5 minutes listening to that Jehovah lady go on about the information super-hellway with Georgie's poop right on the end of my nose. She musta thought I was crazy.

Well, you're right there Honey! At least it wasn't the Avon lady!

When Motherhood was Pretty

2008-06-04T17:58:00.000-07:00

Oh, I remember so well when motherhood was pretty. In fact, pretty is an inadequate adjective to describe the radiant beauty I felt in being a mother. I virtually shone with inner light. When I was with my children, my hair glistened, my smile glowed, and my joyous, heart-felt laugh rang like a chorus of bells. I wrapped myself in my children and we were breathtaking.

Oh, I remember well how beautiful my children were. We walked down the beach, with our jeans rolled up. We skittered up the sand as the waves broke over our feet. They giggled and squealed. My heart nearly burst of love. I would stop, overwhelmed that my heart could hold as much love as this. How could it not burst?

Oh, I remember their first violin lessons. When they held the tiny instruments in their small hands. Running their fingers carefully over the polished wood. The little start of glee I saw start in their eyes and then creep down to their lips the first time they drew the bow across the strings. Even the squeaking and squawking practice couldn't diminish their joy, or mine, in seeing them so happy.

Oh, I remember how perfect and frail my children looked when they were sick. Wrapped tight in a blanket of fleece, and my love. Flushed from fever. Their soft hair brushing warm cheeks. Crying soft, nearly silent tears. All of us. Them from the pain, and me from the pain of watching them suffer.

Oh, I remember. I remember the transcendent, quiet beauty of being a mother.

Then, I remember, that this all happened in my tiny little pea-brain years before I ever actually had kids. Then.....I went and had them.

Then, oh, my hair glistened all right. It glistened from the natural oils your scalp produces when you can't spare 5 minutes in 5 days to take a shower. And that bell like laugh, was in fact, more of a going-to-snap cackle that turned my husband's hair white (it has incredible power, that laugh. I've seen it melt popsicles at the same time it creates bloodsicles of arteries).

And, oh, they were beautiful. They were gorgeous. When they were sleeping. But when they were awake, and strolling down the beach, it was a chorus of whining about damp pants and sniveling about sand between their toes. And the skittering? That was actually galloping away from me as I chased them down the beach threatening to bonk them with a conch shell.

Then, oh, ohhh, ooohhhhh that first violin lesson! When I wondered what on Earth possessed me to place a one-child-torture device in the hands of a three year old! It's like asking a pyromaniac to hold on to your matches for you. Certain disaster is sure to follow! Believe me, it's not pretty to see a harried woman chew her way through a miniature bow. Not attractive. At all. And damn, it's tough to get horse hair out of your teeth.

And, oh, oh my. How frail they were when they were sick. Weak, except for their voices, bellowing in my ear, after they'd just thrown up down the back of my neck as I was bent over the toilet being sick myself. And wrapped in the fleece? Me. Strictly to protect my facial orifices from the next bout of projectile vomit sure to be aimed at my head.

Oh, I remember when motherhood was pretty. Way back, way back, at the back of my imagination. Motherhood was pretty when I was pretty damn green (inexperienced, not naseous). The beauty of motherhood kinda matches my belly--the before and after. Before kids, it was glorious. Flat, smooth and sweet. After kids, it's lumpy, creased and sad.

Ah, the innocence of youth....mine, not my kids.

My advice? Stick with the imagination kids. They're cute, clean, cuddly, and sweet. And they will never, ever wipe snot on your best blouse.

M/Other by Rishma Dunlop

2008-06-04T10:32:00.000-07:00

The f/act of m/other
contains us in differences
yet we are pulled
by the heart's tides
the pulses of our children's veins
the salt of their tears
the radiance of their laughter

we grow up knowing
bittersweet symphonies
body-memories
of blood and milk
the consciousness of
the precarious cadences
in the disordered music of love

and everywhere
mothers write stories
of sons and daughters
this one will be fierce
this one will be tender

and they will sing
terrifying, beautiful prophets
for the world

in the gaps between our words
our children's voices pull us
relentless magnets
anchoring us
to the earth.

I'm Afraid

2008-06-03T10:59:00.001-07:00

I''m afraid I am losing them. They seem to be slipping away, like memories I try desperately to hang onto. There are times when I want nothing more, but for them to be away from me, so I can breathe, have space to feel alive like I once did. But then there are these desperate, terrifying moments that tell me they've moved too far to come back. I'm swimming in a dark cold pond, only my face is above the water, I can only hear murmurs, voices I used to recognize are changing.

My husband tells me it's normal, they are just growing up. Inside, I know this is true, but it doesn't take the sting away. I have so little time. It is usually chopped up into small bundles I try to share with everyone, but I always seem to run out. Their baby sister takes so much from them, and they lover her all the same. It used to be just the three of us, and they had me all to themselves. Do they miss me, us? I know they are happy. This is more about me, my fears at what I'm missing, losing, or what I've already lost.

I watch them getting taller, their bodies changing everyday. They are people now, where they used to be kids. They no longer need everything from me, for which I am deliriously happy. But sometimes I want time to slow, to take in the moments I've rushed through.

I want to tell them how proud I am to be their mother, and how hard it has been to be their mother. How to be a mother, you wish away so much, and after it passes you want a do-over, maybe to get it right the next time. I'm just afraid I guess, afraid of what's to come.

Guilt by Motherhood

2008-05-30T18:27:00.000-07:00

I don't know how, or if I will ever come to terms with the difference of parenting between men and women. I am not sure how to adequately describe to my husband how it feels to be the "primary", the one who always must be there for the kids. And if somehow I am not there I spent endless amounts of time arranging, rearranging and organizing so things run smoothly. Then when I am gone I still fret about how he's coping or how the kids are doing. Did I do this, did I do that....God it is painful.

Yes, I have been a single parent, and am lucky enough to share parenting with a very loving committed man. This however, doesn't completely alter the way I feel about the responsibility that is either placed on me by myself or by society in general, in regards to what my job as a mother is.

As I am writing this I am imagining my husband reading, wondering what it is he could do to make me feel less like this. That is the point I guess, I don't even know. All I want is to have the same ability to walk out the door to do what I need to do and not spend hours preparing for my departure, or feeling guilty enough not to go in the first place. I want what is granted to most fathers, comfort in the knowledge that their children are cared for, no matter what. That someone will be there for the doctors appointments, the orthodontist appointments, the early morning trips to school and the late pick-ups. That in the end, they don't really have to put too much thought into how these things happen.

I know, I am bitching even though I am lucky enough to be a stay-at-home mom. This was a choice our family made, that worked for us. I am not ignoring the fact that there are plenty of families out there that don't have the chance to have one parent stay home with their children full time. Unfortunately there are still those families, where both parents work, yet it is still, for the most part left up to mom to ensure much of the children's care is organized (Dr.'s, ortho, lessons and such).

Is it the unwritten rule that women bare the larger load of domestic duties? I am certain there are exceptions to this, and there are those families who are able to equally disperse the responsibility of the everyday. Again here, my husband will cringe. I am not suggesting he is not as willing or does not try do as much as he can, it is just very different.

I am also lucky enough to share child rearing with an ex-spouse. This is a challenge on it's own. Resentment skyrockets with ever increasing speed, as the kids get older and require more juggling. Their father tends to become less and less available (depending on how convenient it is at any given moment), or he lives his life and thoughts of what the kids might need becomes secondary. I don't recall anyone asking me if it will work for me to drive (carting three or more children), to school before 8am, in rush hour traffic, with a vomiting toddler.

I know I am their mother, I don't have a moment to forget that, ever. Should I? Well no of course not, but what I want is for the other parent to feel the same pull I feel when it comes to the kids. What I want is a fair shake. What I want, is not to get phone calls two days after the children's father arrives, telling me he just needed a couple of days to do things before he sees them. I can't friggin' imagine being available to see my children, whom live with my ex-wife, and not do everything in my power to be there when I can.

As moms we are all too often made to believe that it is our duty to make sure every bit of care is overlooked by us. That without our go ahead, our family's world would fall apart. I know sometimes what I am driven most by is guilt. Guilt that the kids will somehow miss out, that they won't get what they need if I am not there for everything. Guilt that I should be able to do it all and more, and do it with a smile on my face to boot.

I am not sure I can live up to it all, that I am enough.

Go Forth and Fail Miserably

2008-05-30T08:48:00.000-07:00

I always worry about my kids. What I lie. I sometimes (on a fairly sporadic basis) worry about my kids. Honestly, I'm not a worrier. Okay, here's my secret shame. Don't tell anyone. Promise? When my teenagers go out at night....I don't wait up. I work, or blog, or watch TV, or drink scotch (actually, there's no "or" about the scotch, I pretty much always do that), brush my teeth, and go to bed. I don't lie awake listening for the door, or toss and turn wondering if they're going to miss curfew (not giving them a curfew has actually made policing that little problem rather easy), or sit in a darkened room, in my house coat, tapping my fuzzy slippers.

Nope. I cuddle up, and go straight to sleep (and let me here, again, extol the virtues of scotch).

But there are times, even for a lackadaisical parent like me, when I worry sick. Will she pass the driver's test? Will (no, when) will Lauren (or Larry, we're an equal-opportunity family) break my son's heart? Will they get into the university they want to attend? Will they get hired? Will they get fired? Will they fall down drunk on the front step after a party and destroy $6000.00 of orthodontia?

So, I think I do what most other semi-intelligent, moderately interested parents do....I press the secret button every parent has on the underside of the minivan dash and convert the family vehicle (which I never seem able to rid of the hamster-smell, what is that smell anyway?) into a save-my-kids command centre.

From this post, I manage, juggle and herd the problem in to a little corner. I then pounce fiercely, capture the beastie, and slay the bastard. Virtually saving my darlings from pain and anguish. Oh, I'm amazing. You should see me. It's stunning.

But only recently, my bright and blazing super-mom emblem is starting to slip (and it has nothing to do with one boob being bigger than the other either, thankyouverymuch!) As they get older, and are more and more in the world without me, I'm becoming aware that they're scared. Not scared of people, or taking the bus, or even walking at night. They're scared of something much, much worse. They're scared of failure.

I watch these smart, savvy, talented, attractive people that my children have become (I mean, just look at the gene pool!) stand on the sidelines. They're careful and cautious. They don't or won't risk anything. They conform, for the most part (wait, here is my other secret shame--well really I have approximately 79 secret shames, but let's just keep on message, shall we--from the time they were born I lived in fear that they'd grow up to be investment bankers or police officers or dentists. In short, I worried they'd grow up to be "The Man." Tattoos, piercings, and purple hair were cool with me, but the more I encouraged, the more they rebelled. It's all nice hair cuts, oxford shirts, and manners! Little buggers really know how to push my buttons! I know, you're thrilled!! Now you know how to raise your kids to be well-groomed, pierce only their ears, and only one time in each lobe, and restrict tattooing to tagging their Five-Star binders with washable markers).

But why?! Why were these kids, my kids, who had nearly every advantage I could afford--a comfortable life, a good education, and parents who loved and encouraged their dreams, be afraid to fail, and thus, finally, afraid to try?

Because of me. Because I was the lion-tamer, the trapeze net, the big, fat mat to cushion their falls. I never let them hit hard. I never let them feel the truth of their pain. I never let them experience their mistakes. I never let them fail.

And in doing so, I've failed them. I've raised people afraid of pain. People who won't risk themselves because they've never learned that, though it's painful, they'll live through their failures. I saved them from themselves and have short-changed them. Now I have to step back and watch them wobble. As young adults facing a new life, they have to learn the lessons I should have allowed them to learn when they were four. It's not fair and I'm ashamed of myself (and they're angry at me for not doing what they've come to expect me to do).

I thought I was doing my best for them. As a parent, watching your child suffer is possibly one of the hardest things we have to do. My solution was to prevent or soften that suffering, as much for them as for myself. And I was wrong. We owe it to our children to allow them to experience the reality of their actions and their pain. How else can they become people aware of their potential, aware of what they can overcome, and what they can achieve?

So, I've retired my super-mom outfit for good. No more saving them. No more slaying the beast. I have to give them the simple human dignity of truth. They can and will handle it. And they'll be stronger people for it. They'll be better people for it.

I have a new motto now--Try stuff. Fail faster.

I know there are going to be bumps in the road, but frankly, I think they'd rather live through those bumps than ever have to see my bumpy thighs in my spandex super-mom outfit again! For that, at least, they'll thank me, and, I suspect, so will our neighbors!

Out of Body Experience

2008-05-28T22:27:00.000-07:00

We've all been there at one time or another. Walking behind our children, sitting laughing with them, kissing their new, ever growing, gigantic faces goodnight, and we have do a second take at how much they have changed. Holy hell, we ask ourselves, "when did this happen, when did they change, and grow up so fast?" Sometimes it is endless and never seems to move quite fast enough, but there are those rare moments...

I had one of those the other day, shopping of all places. All three of them laughing and playing together. The two big kids taking care of their little sister, chasing her around the store keeping her amused, the best they could.

As we left the store, my older daughter was carrying her baby sister and my son was chasing them, while his baby sister screamed with delight.

I watched them, laughing, playing and enjoying each other. It struck me that I had carried each of these people inside my body, grew them until they were able to join the real world. Wow! Sometimes I still feel like I am 18 and shouldn't have a daughter with boobs, a boy with zits and a toddler running around screaming her fool head off, but alas I do.

I am often tired, I complain a whole lot, but at the end of the day I am so glad I have them to share my life with. To stand outside myself here and there and marvel at what life has become, is truly unbelievable.

THE NEXT SURVIVOR SERIES: Survivor - Motherhood

2008-05-28T15:00:00.000-07:00

Six married men will be dropped on an island with one car and three kids.
Each for six weeks.
Each kid will play two sports and either take music or dance classes.
There is no fast food.Each man must take care of his 3 kids; keep his assigned house clean, correct all homework, and complete science projects, cook, do laundry, and pay a list of 'pretend' bills with not enough money.
Each man will have to budget in money for groceries each week.
Each man must remember the birthdays of all their friends and relatives, and send cards out on time.
Each man must also take each child to a doctor's appointment, a dentist appointment and a haircut appointment.
He must make one unscheduled and inconvenient visit per child to the Urgent Care.
He must also make cookies or cup cakes for a social function.
Each man will be responsible for decorating his own assigned house, planting flowers outside and keeping it presentable at all times.
The men will only have access to television when the kids are asleep and all chores are done.
The men must shave their legs, wear uncomfortable yet stylish shoes, keep fingernails manicured and eyebrows groomed.
During one of the six weeks, the men will have to endure severe abdominal cramps, back aches, and have extreme, unexplained mood swings but never once complain or slow down from other duties.
They must attend weekly school meetings, church, and find time at least once to spend the afternoon at the park or a similar setting.
They will need to read a book and then pray with the children each night and in the morning, feed them, dress them, brush their teeth and comb their hair by 7 :00 am.
A test will be given at the end of the six weeks, and each father will be required to know all of the following information: each child's birthday, height, weight, shoe size, clothes size and doctor's name.
The child's weight at birth, length, time of birth, and length of labour, each child's favorite color, middle name, favorite snack, favorite song, favorite drink, favorite toy, biggest fear and what they want to be when they grow up.
The kids vote them off the island based on performance. The last man wins only if ... he still has enough energy to be intimate with his spouse at a moment's notice.
IF the last man does win, he can play the game over and over and over again for the next 18-25 years eventually earning the right to be called Mother!

Disclaimer: OK. There are lots of Dads out there that can and do do this, but the reason this is funny for so many of us is that IT IS SO F*#*#*#*ing TRUE!

The Plan

2008-05-28T12:56:00.000-07:00

My kids are driving me crazy, or as my darling Grandma used to say, before she'd slipped down the hall to take off her girdle, and secretly slide a mickey of Gammel Dansk out of a pair of sensible shoes at the back of her closet, "Oh! You kids! Shut up!! You're driving me to drink!!"

Now, say....I think Grandma might have been on to something.

So, I've developed a strategy. I've decided to approach all parenting dilemmas with a three-fold plan:

One: When approached with whining pre-schoolers, or angry, angst- ridden teenagers (of which, insanely, I have both), I will stop. That is, stop moving--a mother standing in the kitchen or laundry-room, or sitting on the toilet, is such a ubiquitous sight as to make her almost invisible. Especially if she's holding any implements coated in food remnants, filthy dirty socks turned inside-out, or as with seeming regularity in my case, mid-stream. If however, the invaders sense my presence (which I admit, may be more often than I like, them being equipped with highly developed mother-seeking radar), I'll move onto step two of the plan.

Two: After being spotted by the hordes, with the unfortunate failure of my camouflage, I'll smile (to put them off their guard), then run. Admittedly, I'm not as fast as the little ticks, and when determined they have incredible stamina, but I hope that with the combination of the disarming smile, and the sudden movement (of which they are rather unfamiliar--sudden movements from their mother, I mean), the boogers will be unsure of what's happening, thus giving me a much needed head start. I plan to press my advantage, make a fast-break for any room with a lock, and once inside throw the bolt. Now, I haven't failed to account for the problem of having the nose-miners on one side of a door, and me, locked on the other--which most mother's have learned results in the pound-kick-pound-scream attack. So I've made a survey of all the rooms in our house with a lock, and discovered that each of those rooms also has a window. Always have an escape hatch (that's my motto). Oh, yes. Always have an escape hatch, and wear shoes. But, I sense, this tactic may be slightly flawed and prone to failure, as eventually, my Catholic guilt will force me home, where I suspect, the "Bestowers of the Stretch Marks" will be lying in wait. So, when forced to reenter my home, I will move on to step three.

Three: Calmly and quietly, through the noise and din and renting of clothing, I'll make my way to the drink cupboard and pour myself a stiff one. Once imbibed, I will repeat the step until sufficiently lubricated as to make all complaining, whining, demanding, and shouting irrelevant (to me). At which point, I will proudly carry on the family tradition and bellow, "Oh! You kids! Shut up!! You're driving me to drink!"

Get Your Bags and RUN!!

2008-05-28T09:03:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago I overheard a conversation (okay I was eavesdropping) between a couple of moms in the locker room. These moms must have been mid-fortyish, and seemed pretty with it from my limited standpoint. Then their conversation turned to the subject of going on vacation.

One of the women was telling the other that she was getting ready to go away somewhere warm, and her friend asked her if it was just she and her husband. To which she replied, as though she had cold water poured over her head, "of course not, we're taking the whole family. I just don't understand those people who want to be away from their kids. I personally love spending every waking, painful moment with mine" (okay I might be taking a few liberties here, but you get the tone).

I was so stunned I nearly made my eavesdropping known, but held back, due to the fact that I was hiding out in the washroom just to listen in. "Perfect Mom" then went on to say that since she and her husband "Poor Pitiful Guy" had children, they had never spent one night away from them....EVER. Are you kidding me? No dirty filthy hotel sex, EVER?? Geesh and I thought we were boring. Well, her reasoning was that if one wants to have children why would they need to be away from them? Her friend, just nodded her poor simple little head, and never challenged this notion. WOW!

Well let me tell you my friends I both NEED and WANT time away from my offspring. In fact when the chance arises I am giddy, tingly with excitement. I usually have an upset stomach and diarrhea due to the thrill, a few days prior to my launch.

I remember one year a friend and I had gone away, we decided to leave the night before our original planned departure, instead of leaving early the next morning. Well, we didn't arrive until very late, after midnight in fact. We grabbed out bags out of the car, checked into our room, and proceeded to crawl into our very own queen-sized beds, mowing down chips watching crap on t.v., giggling like we'd never been alone before. There is just something about the way that kind of freedom from your children, and your life makes you feel.

I cherish those times; when I can be a girl again, a fun, silly, sleeping late, staying up later kind of girl. We need those times away with friends and ourselves, to reconnect with who we once were. It feels good to know I can do this, that my loved ones support me doing it.

I love sitting cross legged on a bed reading trashy magazines, putting on make-up and acting as though I am a teenager again It feels bloody good to take care of just me for a few days here and there. To forget that someone needs something from me, and I can sit back and do nothing for a change.

Maybe there really are those "Perfect Moms" out there who never need or want time for themselves, away from their families, sadly, no, gladly I am not one of them. I look forward to the next parcel of time where I get to "pack my bags and run"!!

Reinventing Jane

2008-05-27T12:15:00.000-07:00

We all know somewhere somehow, after becoming a mom you lose something. Parts of the "old" you become increasingly less visible. Till one day your standing in a store or in your own closet wondering how the hell you got here in the first place. You're not just a mom, a headless entity that does things, finds things, cooks, and cleans for other people (although it feels like it some days), you're still there. Deep down, in the dark recesses you are still the same girl you once were. Maybe not with the same body, hair, skin and all that crap, but you know who you were.

You're still you, but it is like someone took you apart, put the pieces of you into a jar, shook it up, dumped it all back out, reassembled the pieces, but somehow didn't quite manage to get it right. Kind of like the image of Humpty Dumpty being put back together by soldiers and horses, not pretty. And it certainly not like the adage, "it's you, only better".

Today this hit me....hard. I stopped at the mall to see if I could find something, anything to put on my not so perfect body. Something that would put that little spring back into my step, yeah whatever. I recently heard a talk about how women tend not to know their style "age" especially after having children.

It starts out with you in your twenties. You still aren't sure how to make the transition from a teen dresser to a young woman...well sadly that confusion, sticks like cellulite for many of us. Next you find yourself struggling to create some kind of image that fits who you thought you were, but now that you've kind of figured it out, you've aged ten years and you are on the fashion/identity hamster wheel from hell!! Fuck!!

Now I walk into stores with young, and I mean young girls giving you advice, or just trying to humour so you get the hell out of their hair, and stop shopping in their stores. Help I am stuck! Either I go straight for granny-ville, or back to my twenties, which just isn't cool. I don't know how to picture myself looking stylish and hip without looking like a cougar on the hunt. More often than not I end up leaning towards comfortable clothing that is more like lounge wear. I want to look hip, sophisticated, but lack the know how and frankly the confidence much of the time.

Ah, the joys of growing up and older, becoming a mom, and losing yourself. Why doesn't this transition come with some kind of hand book. There are "how to's" on everything from sex, to computers, to raising children. Why hasn't anyone told us how to tuck little bits of ourselves away so we can take them out later to find that they had aged beautifully like fine wine?

Remember stumbling through the awkwardness of our teens, wishing we could just grow up and become confident women? Oh ,how time plays us for fools. Here we are back at the starting block once again, only we have wrinkles, stretch marks, grey hair, saggy boobs and bums to go with it. Shopping used to be a joy now it's a chore, for the most part. Looking endlessly at racks of jeans and accessories makes my head spin, when it used to make me dizzy with excitement.

Well, I can't very well walk around naked, without putting everyone into therapy. Instead I have to put on my sweetest smile, drag my lumpy bum to the store, to put up with the sympathetic, cynical looks I get from the sales girls and reinvent myself yet again.

How did Jerry Scott and Jim Borgam get inside my life?

2008-05-27T11:22:00.000-07:00

Okay, everymom, I want you to get together in small groups. You, Harriet, you join Tiffany's group. Tiffany! You will get along with all your group members! Okay, ladies. Go ahead. Discuss!

Can't write.....too tired.....zzzzzzz

2008-05-26T12:31:00.000-07:00

I wanted to write about the frightening disconnection we parents have with our intuition. The teeth-chattering, knee-knocking fear we feel if we don't validate our parenting decisions, thoughts, feelings, bumblings, and triumphs with an expert. It could be our parents, or friends, or siblings, but mostly we don't feel secure unless we validate our choices with the Oprah's and Dr. Phils and Dr. Spocks.

Sad.

Millions of years of parenting evolution, so we can trust the talking heads. Maybe it's just me, but mostly, I can't help seeing their bulging eyes and listening to their stern warnings without imagining them surrounded by Wizard of Oz-type green fire. I just know, one day, some one's little dog is going to run out of Oprah's audience, pull back a curtain, and there will be a sad, chubby, lonely little man pulling her strings.

Just creeps me out.

So, yup, I was going to write a doozy of a post. With references, links, erudite dialog, jaw-dropping insights, and spectacular grammar.

But, too tired. My four year old spent a sick Saturday night draining my will to live. If they were casting for a new zombie flick, possibly entitled, Day of the Sleepless Dead, I'd get the lead roll. There'd be no contest.

Must go. Fingers tired. Eyes drooping. Drool pooling.......

"Motorbike"

2008-05-26T09:24:00.000-07:00

(The Mother's version of Handlebars)

I can go to work on a motorbike, on a motorbike yah, on a motorbike, and I can wear my jeans with no underwear, no underwear, no underwear, and I can veto plans with my evil glare, my evil glare, yah, my evil glare. I can change the time with my microwave, with my microwave, with my microwave, yah and I can take out stains with my pampers wipes with my pampers wipes, yah with my pampers wipes. I can cook a meal with no vegetables, with no vegetables, no vegetables. I can read a book for one thousand times, for one thousand times, for one thousand times and I can still get looks from the grocery guy, from the grocery guy, yah from the grocery guy. I can handle pain without alcohol, without alcohol, without alcohol and I can make a lunch in ten seconds flat, in ten seconds flat, yah ten seconds flat. I can break stereotypes with my attitude with my attitude yah, with my attitude and I can go to work on a motorbike, a motorbike, yah on a motorbike.

Good Times!!

2008-05-23T07:49:00.000-07:00

Well, no not really. I hate to be doom and gloom once again, but I am so bloody exhausted I probably shouldn't even drive today. Is it normal, or even okay to exist on about 4 hours of sleep a night? I don't think it's safe, or acceptable, but short of wearing ear defenders to bed, or sleeping on another floor of the house I don't know what to do.

My problem? A 20 month old with a set of lungs that could rival Pavarotti. I know, talking about an ingrown hair is more interesting than hearing about another sleepless night, among hundreds many of us have experienced (thousands, for those of us who can't seem to stop having children).

I just can't seem to get over it. Trying to get enough sleep, or at least enough to keep the bags under your eyes out of a medical journal, is like searching for he "Holy Grail", elusive at best.
My favorite is when someone, with only concern, says, "gosh you look so tired, everything okay?". How to answer? While all of the voices inside your head are screaming obscenities, you smile and always say that you're fine, you'll manage.

Unless of course it is a good friend, who will sit through your ranting, supportively, nodding her head, pouring you another glass of wine. All the while convincing you, you aren't really losing it. And a really, really good friend will never tell you that this will soon pass. That your precious little wonders will grow up and you'll look back and miss these days. I highly, highly doubt it. Instead they sit there with the same angry scowl on their face, telling you how much it sucks, and of course pour you yet another glass of wine.

I know the day will come when I will close my eyes, sleep through the night, only having to get up to pee, because my over worked bladder can't go a whole night anyway, but that day seems so far away. God I'll probably be in a nursing home by then. Geesh!!

How to Be a Cool Mom

2008-05-23T07:16:00.000-07:00

I had this idea recently, that I would poll my children and their friends on what makes a cool mom. Now this isn't something one leaps into blind. I had to formulate the appropriate closed questions--opened-ended questions wouldn't suffice when addressing the loquacious junior high school drama-club set. I needed supporting visuals, superior reference materials, and ample edibles on hand to sustain the examination period (the test market being rather churlish and unwilling when not plied with bottomless nachos.)

The weight and value of this question required my full attention. I had to put aside all other pressing matters, like dinner, to give this burning subject the considerable time and thought it deserved. I mean, I was possibly assembling the most highly sought insights of a generation. My research could change the face of parenthood forever. I felt like a modern day Marie Curie, without the science background, or the ability to introduce a possible cure for a terrible plague to the human race, but, hey, I try to do my part.

So I rounded up my test market--three 14-year olds, two 17-year olds, a six-year old, a 20-year old, and a pre-schooler. The sample wasn't large, and the room for error was, but I'm a trooper, and an extraordinary extrapolator, so I pressed on.

I posed a range of questions, including:

Who is the coolest pop culture mom--Pamela Anderson, Angelina Jolie, Marge Simpson, or Lorelei Gilmore?

Is it cool to share clothes with your mom?

Is it super-awesome when your mom flirts with your boyfriend/girlfriend?

Does your mom look better in a cropped belly-shirt or an ankle-length full-coverage muumuu?

Which is better, a strict mom who sets boundaries, curfews, and has introduced a complete ban on blue eye shadow? Or a wild mom who bootlegs booze for you and your friends and gives you a semi-annual bikini wax on the kitchen table?

Is it a good thing that your mom talks to you about sex? In microscopic detail? With handy props?

And finally, when going out with your mom, what is the feet-in-distance you must follow your mom x outfit-your-mom-is-wearing. In other words: if my mom is wearing sweat pants and a maternity top, I walk_______feet behind her.

Well, when all was said and done (and let me tell you, I did not escape unscathed. I still have little pockmarks in the skin on my face from the spittle blasting from horrified mouths. As well, my ears continue to ring from the near dog-whistle-high screams of terror), the responses were fairly consistent (I' ll save you the technical jargon we pollsters use) but to be a cool mom you have to:

look like Angelina Jolie,
speak only when spoken to, and
allow any and all teenagers in your vicinity to choose your clothes.

Oh, and some of the respondents felt a cool mom always supplied a bedtime story, with the funny voices. However, those respondents were in the minority.

But, by far, the most important revelation of what it takes to be a cool mom was, in the end, simple and intuitive. And, frankly, it's one I hesitate to share (after all, having done the work, one feels the overwhelming urge to keep explosive information like this to one's self). But for the sake of future mother-child relations, and in the long-sought pursuit of cool mother status I will share what I know. But brace yourselves.

To be a cool mom, a really cool mom....

....just keep those nachos coming.

Where Have I Gone?

2008-05-22T12:06:00.000-07:00

I'm disappearing. In fact, I'm nearly invisible now.

There was a time when I was smart and beautiful and funny and charming and brave. But now, I'm not. Now, I'm someone's mom. Now, I'm a driver, a cleaner, a cook, a moderator, an occasional friend, and an absolute oppressor.

How strange and sad it is to try to see myself through my children's eyes. To me, I'm still the wild-haired girl who danced all night, flirted mercilessly, drank gin, read, talked passionately about politics, laughed long and loud, loved sex, and chased dreams. They don't see that girl though. They laugh and blush at the idea she ever existed, and beg me not to tell their friends. They're reject her. And when they allow that, possibly, she was, they're ashamed.

So, where have I gone? How long ago did I leave?

Help, I'm Trapped!

2008-05-22T07:25:00.000-07:00

I feel like standing in my front window with a hand scrawled sign saying"Help Me". You know, the kind kids used to make and hold up in car windows while travelling with parents in un-airconditioned cars, crammed together, seatbeltless, bored to the point of risking their poor unsuspecting innocent parents arrest. Obviously I have digressed terribly here.

What I guess I am trying to say, is there are days when I feel trapped, I mean trapped like a small helpless animal whose leg gets caught in one of those inhumane leg jaws. And I am ready to gnaw off my leg.

There is no simple way to describe how challenging it is to be stuck at home, when you have a sick child on hand and no means of escape. I'm not talking the kind of sick, where you are truly worried for your child's safety. I just mean, the kind of sick where even a trip to the grocery store is too much. I know, there are probably eye rolls and the likes, but sweet Jesus it can feel like an eternity.

Just when you think the snot has abated and you get ready to regain some ground, you're thrust back into the reality that at any moment you'll be imprisoned once again. Sleepless nights, stumbling around in a stupor most of the day, swilling black coffee, which only makes you jittery and short tempered. It's exhausting just thinking about it. Now do it, two or three weeks in a row.

For those of us with more than one child, it gets passed down the ranks pretty rapidly...and you hold your breath waiting for the next bout of illness to hit your house, steal your sleep, and rob you of your patience.

I am ashamed to say that I am not one of those lovely moms who fawn over their loved ones while they are at deaths door. Instead I am snappy and irritated. Annoyed that once again someone is passing their germs onto another unsuspecting family member, and it falls primarily on me, to be the caregiver, cleaner and nurse. I am pretty much trapped, yes that's right, trapped.

The Golden Age of Parenting

2008-05-21T10:28:00.000-07:00

Oh good grief. Sometimes I just want to flee. Do you ever feel like you just want to slip out a side door and make a break for Mexico? Or maybe, in that dark, creepy corner of your basement, where the kids are too scared to venture, secretly develop the first angst-propelled jet pack? Better yet, harness the power of the teenage-eye-roll as an alternative combustible, fill the tank, and pull a Thelma and Louise?

I thought, ya know, I really thought, I was doing it right. I could justify, argue, and defend my parenting choices 'til large men wept (from boredom mostly). The backbone of my belief: treat people, especially children, with respect and dignity, and they will grow to be respectful, dignified people.

I abhorred and tossed my hair at the notion that a family should be anything other than a democracy. What kind of people, I would ask, would subjugate someone just because they could. That kind of abuse of power was reprehensible. I'm a modern, enlightened mother. I talk to my kids. I share with my kids. Their thoughts and feelings have as much value as mine. I thought.

Well, some of my children are grown now. Big people. In fact, my oldest is the same age I was when he was born. And guess what? My utopian parenting didn't work.

My kids aren't bad--though I hate that word. It's so filled with judgment. They are, for the most part, thoughtful, intelligent people. But our relationship isn't what I imagined. All those years of telling them that they had a say. All those years of allowing them to share in the decision making--from where to eat to which house to buy. All those years of discussing chore-sharing, and living expenses (which in our house is a pseudonym for allowance), and giving them a voice when they felt they were being oppressed. All those years, and all those things, backfired.

What I thought, truly believed, would become mutual appreciation and respect, has turned into reverse discrimination. Now they feel they have the power to subjugate me. They demand and demean, and feel fully within their rights to do so. And when I attempt to put my feeble foot down, I get the heavy sighs, the "yeah, whatever's," and the near seizure-inducing eye rolls.

I thought giving them a voice would empower them. I just didn't suspect that that voice I fought so hard to allow them would be used against me.

It's probably too late to reverse my parenting style. I wonder if I could temporarily inhabit the body of a 1950s parent, and see what a swift kick in the ass might do. Probably not much for them, but it would make me feel a hell of a lot better.

Cry

2008-05-20T14:43:00.000-07:00

I remember the intense fear I felt the first time I saw my mother cry. I'm sure it wasn't the first time she had ever shed tears in front of us, it was just that I was old enough to really understand what that meant. The helplessness that ran through me, seeing the one person I thought was afraid of nothing, standing there looking so weak and defeated.

I don't see my mother anymore, it's been almost two years. Aside from one short sliver of time I had to see her. My aunt had just passed away, and my older sister was left to take care of everything else. It was guilt that made me go. I knew I would have to face my mother, looking haggard, tiny and old. It was that moment that made me think of the first time I remember seeing her cry.

This time, seeing her afraid and weakened it made me understand how human we are as moms and women. How must it have made her feel crying before us as small children. We are given the impossible task of trying to be the bravest, the strongest, in our children's eyes. We want nothing more, than for them to feel protected and safe through us. It is bloody terrifying to think that we are asked, expected to, by others and ourselves, to be brave and strong at all cost.

Now, I remember the first time my children saw me cry. The look of sadness and fear in their eyes, still makes my throat thick. I didn't want to make them feel helpless or sad, but they did. It wasn't my intention to let them see my weakness and fear, but they did.

I don't think I ever asked them how it made them feel. Maybe I'm just projecting what I felt as a child onto them, I don't know. I know my mother never asked. It's hard, but I don't think I want to know.

The one thing I do know is that I am sometimes weak, scared and sometimes I even feel defeated. In all of this I am slowly starting to accept that they can see this, they need to see it. My rawness, the reality of who I am. I am flawed, I am human and I make mistakes, it is scary, but it is the truth.

Your Imminence, May I Get Off My Knees Now?

2008-05-20T10:46:00.000-07:00

When I reflect on my life, I'm amazed. Amazed about a couple of things: that I am an independent person; that I have, despite the odds, made good; that McDonald's has the audacity to continue to operate; and that 25 years of shaving your legs is exhausting. But the thing that stands out, that amazes me beyond anything else, is that I'm alive.

When I look back, frankly, I'm shocked. They say cats have 9 lives. If people have anywhere near that amount, I'm nearing my inevitable end. There was the time, when I was 5, that I was hit by a car and spent weeks in the hospital. The time, when I was 8 or 9, I was climbing trees with my brothers and slipped from the branch and dangled, probably, 30 feet above the ground, with my brothers crying, yelling at me to pull myself up, and terrified I would fall. The time, as I was traveling alone around Europe, that I was pulled into the bushes by a very horny, intent Greek man. The time I stood on a street saying goodbye to a young man I was particularly smitten with, when a bus turned the corner and nearly ran me down. The time I nearly bled to death on the delivery room table after one of my sons was born.

I look back at these, and other times when my life was in question, with a little awe and the calmness of having lived and survived. But it also makes me aware that death, Death, is imminent. It's my constant companion. It stalks me like a shadow. But whatever. I can deal with it. I've brushed the edge.

So how is it that I am paralyzed with fear that one of my kids will die. I know the routine. Born, grow, procreate, die. It's pretty simple. I just can't wrap my head around it when I think about my kids. Not only are they going to die, they could die any time. Today, while I'm typing. Tomorrow, when I'm holding their hands. It scares me to a depth I didn't know I had (and I'm not talking intellectual depth here either). This fear is a bottomless pit.

I struggle to understand how to let them go to live their lives when I feel like I need to wrap them up tight and hide them from Death. I have to protect them. I have to absorb the sometimes terrible shock of life. But, can I? Should I? Is it my right to do so? To live is to risk death. I know it myself.

How can they live if they can't die?

They can't. I know that. Intellectually I know that each one of my children will test death. And someday, maybe today, they will die. It will come sometime, though not a time of my choosing. I have to learn to understand that. I have to learn to take whatever I'm given, and learn to allow others, even my children, to have and own what they're given. I think, for me, it's the hardest lesson of parenting. It requires a faith I'm not sure I have.

"Have faith in God."

"Have faith in justice."

"Have faith in the Tao."

"Have faith, everything will be alright."

"Have faith in the circle of life."

It's impossibly hard for me to have faith. I'm frightened to my marrow that I'll lose one of my children. So every day I test my faith. Every day I inch toward trust. Every day my heart constricts, yet every day I open the door, and out they go. Into an uncertain world, and a more uncertain future. Do they deserve any less?

So I sit and write and think and silently pray to who ever will listen--God, Jesus, Mohammed, the Buddha, Krishna, Mary Poppins--my silent mantra and inner dialogue, "I'm going to die. I'm going to die. So are my children. So I must let them live."

Yet, my faith is weak, and still, I'm scared.

W.H. Auden said, "To choose what is difficult all one's days, as if it were easy, that is faith."

I think he must have understood parenting.

Good Morning, I Think

2008-05-20T08:03:00.000-07:00

My youngest child is four. Thank God. She feeds herself, dresses herself, wipes her own bum (most days), and is, finally, night-trained. She's self-sufficient, and I'm glad. No. That's a lie. I'm over the bloody moon.

Babies are sweet, and I love them. When my babies were babies I sometimes couldn't get enough of them. Touching them. Smelling them. Sometimes I wanted to be so close to them, I wanted to bite their chubby little thighs. But I never, ever got over the perpetual lack of sleep.

I always thought those women who stood around talking about how little Betsy or Jonathon slept through the night when they were six days (six seconds) old were full of shit. They were them same women who told me how much they loved every nauseous minute of being pregnant, and that giving birth was not a bloody, messy, dirty, sweaty 12 hours, but a spiritual event that transformed their lives. Oh fuck off.

So when my children all reached that most glorious of milestones--sleeping through the night for the first time--it was always a sublimely joyous occasion. Though as I grew older and more confident as a mother, and with each subsequent child, that joyous occasion started to look a little different.

When my first child slept though the night, I woke in an absolute panic. How could this be!!!! Was he still breathing??!!! Had he, oh, please no God, had he died in his sleep? I practically flew from my bed to his room. I threw open the door and ran to his crib and picked him up. Poking, squeezing, listening and watching for his breath. He was fine, if a little shocked and groggy. After all, I had just woken him up. He started crying (go figure) and my day began. He didn't sleep through the night again soon.

When my second child, a beautiful little girl, slept through the night for the first time. I again woke in a panic. But, I'm no dummy. I'd learned my lesson the first time. I quietly, though quickly, made my way to her room, tiptoed in, rested my hand on her little back to feel her breathing and tiptoed out. I, of course, didn't go back to sleep. The adrenalin ripping through my veins prevented that. Good God. Parenting is a perpetually stomach-clenching nightmare. I laid their wondering if there would ever be a time I wasn't in constant fear that something bad was going to happen to my children. Then she woke up. The screaming, snot-filled day was about to begin. My fear abated.

Then came my third child, and friend, let me tell you, I was tired! There's really no word in our language to express that absolute bone and soul weary feeling of motherhood. I was nursing her when she had her first all-night sleepfest. So I woke a pajama-soaked dripping mess. I was engorged, and it hurt like a bugger. I rolled over looked at the clock and realized what had happened. The entire night had gone by and I was still horizontal. I had an instant flash of panic, but I was drowningly exhausted. So I pulled the blankets up around my ears and thought, "Well, if she's dead there's nothing I can do about it now. I may as well get a little more sleep." And, well, I went back to sleep.

I did. I went back to sleep. And it felt good. Well, except for my boobs. But she made fast work of that when she woke up.

I told that story once to a hallway full of pre-school moms. The response was shock, disgust, and horror. Everyone was silent. Talk about a mood-killer.

But whaddya goin' do? Life is hard. Motherhood is harder. If you ask me, you should sleep. That's what you oughta do.

Advice anyone?

2008-05-20T06:04:00.000-07:00

Last night I sat down reread some of the older posts we've contributed and thought I wanted/needed to write something that would be interesting and valuable somehow. I sat and sat, waiting , but nothing earth-shattering came to me. So instead I decided to look at what other people/moms are talking about.

Immediately it occurred to me, by what I was reading, was that a lot of what was out there was basically self-help or better yet parenting-help advice. With titles like, "How To Be The Parent of Your Dreams", "Why Good Parents Have Bad Kids", and the likes. God, it's enough to make the most confident parent question what they are doing. I didn't come across anything that talked about the immense fear some of have about not being capable enough....although, by whose standards is this measured?

It is as though there is this long list of boxes to be ticked off when raising a child. The foods you introduce, when to introduce them to your child's diet, reactions he or she might have. When and how to get them to recite the alphabet. I have fallen so short here. And I have never been the mom who kept a food journal, writing down each and every item I tried to squeeze past my baby's stubborn little lips. Yet I remember other parents talking about what stage they were at in their child's food development (I really had to keep from saying, "you're freaking kidding me right?") But no, they weren't .

I don't mean to belittle or judge anyone who does any of these things, honestly, kudos to you for taking things so seriously. It just seemed impossible for me to do these things myself.

Now that I a mom for the third time, I chalk it up to having already been through it or just being too tired and often too overwhelmed, to make an effort to write down everything my child eats or does. Whatever it is, I still get pangs of guilt when I sit in a waiting room and magazine covers stare back at me with statements of how to do any number of things, things I know I probably don't do, will never do, by the book.

I don't think I will ever have enough experience to give anyone advice, the only thing I can offer is to do what you think is best, close your eyes, cross your fingers and hang on for dear life. It's a bumpy ride.

Helping Hands

2008-05-17T07:42:00.000-07:00

There are those days when you wonder what the hell was going through your head, having more than one child. There is more laundry, dishes and crap laying around, then you know what to do with.

But then, there are those bright moments that make all of the nights you lay in bed worried, wondering if what you've done so far will be enough, worth it. Whether they will leave the safe confines of their home and the arms of their family will no longer hold them up, and they will be good people, loving people.

I had one of those bright moments the other day. It had been a really long week, probably only Tuesday, but if felt like a 10 day week. My oldest daughter had a project she had to complete, and she and a friend decided to come to our house to do it. They asked for help to the point where I thought to myself, I better be getting some grade 8 credit for this. Finally I had to step away because my frustration was mounting and I could feel my inner crazy getting ready to emerge and smash to whole project to bits (there was a very vivid picture of this running through my head). Funny how little things can push you to the brink.

As the girls struggled, glued, re glued, revamped and basically started over three times, my younger son became interested in what they were doing, and started to make some suggestions. Let me give you some back ground here, his sister wants to be the boss, always (a product of being raised my a single parent). Whether he is packing his backpack, brushing his teeth, she likes to tell him how to do it.

So for her to allow him to give her any advice was wild. Before I knew it he had stepped right in, making parts of the project from scratch, until it worked. He did it so lovingly and gently. I could only sit back and listen to their exchanges. The girls pushing him on with words of encouragement (well more like transparent sucking up), but he was smiling and loving it.

The next day I had to pick them up, and asked how things had gone. Apparently he had gotten so attached to the project he went to the girls class at lunch time to make sure it was all working, and tweaked is slightly for them.

It is wonderful to see kids, your own kids, doing this for each other.

But of course all good things must end, and yesterday they were back to their bickering selves, It was about nothing more than who always has to do more around here.....will it ever end? Probably not, but as long as I get a few of the other moments, all will be okay.

Murderer by momstheword

2008-05-16T10:13:00.000-07:00

I am a murderer. If you do something to harm my child, I will seek you out, hunt you down and kill you.

Okay, I'm not really a murderer, but I could be.

Without hesitation or regret I could and would kill any human being that purposefully, physically harmed one of my children. I'm not talking a "push in the school yard" kinda thing; I'm talking the kind of horrible things only a Mother and Father can dream up in the deep, dark recesses of their minds once they bring these incredible beings into the world.

I know, I know--it's been said before....we have all felt it....but for me, it was an earth-shattering realization.

I was not a "baby person." My sister did all the babysitting and baby-holding when we were growing up; I just wanted to play with dogs and horses. On the rare occasion that I did babysit, it was only because I needed the money to pay for more horse riding lessons.

Age and marriage did little to change my level of enthusiasm for children. After all, I was a university grad, a DINK, and a Business Woman, traveling to exotic locales like Toronto and Montreal....most importantly, I finally had my very own horse and my very own dog. How could life be any sweeter?

And then we brought her home.

That evening, the agony of what we had allowed into our home, and more importantly, into our hearts was too much to bear.

"What were we thinking?" I sobbed. "What the Hell do we do when she comes home crying because her friends have made fun of her? WHAT WERE WE THINKING?!"

I am a murderer.

Written and submitted by momstheword

Long way off

2008-05-15T19:23:00.000-07:00

I don't know if it's age. I don't remember ever feeling this tired with two small kids. I was in my twenties, so maybe that's the trick, quit while you're ahead. Who knew one tiny little person could wear you out so much. I am too tired to even think about eating.

The sink is full of dishes, from kids coming and going with friends all afternoon. The kitchen sink is plugged, and there are clothes in both the washer and dryer. Just thinking about it makes me want to curl up, cover my head and never come out. Maybe when I find the courage to rear my head, it will all be done.

I stood outside today watching my little girl run from one thing to the next, barely able to move. It amazes me how two tiny little legs can travel so far in one afternoon. God, my arms feel too heavy to lift, as does my whole body. I'm thinking it is definitely CMS...what else could it be?

I have been in and out of the car five times today, doing up and undoing a car seat, hauling a small child on one hip. Slinging bags, snacks, blankies, a dropped toy or shoe. I never seem to come back home with less than I left with. How is that, where does all of the shit come from????

I gather up older kids, friends in tow. Take them here and there. I run out to pick up the forgotten milk, just to race home again and remember a forgotten appointment, I have a whole six minutes to get to it.

Sometimes it just feels like it's too much for one person. What's too much? Oh yeah, I still have to feed the cats, let the dog out, feed the lizards, and the fish too. And I guess if it isn't too much, I should probably think about feeding myself. Rest is a long way off.

My kid is a genius

2008-05-15T08:15:00.000-07:00

It is a little late, but here is one of my Mother's Day presents. The Kindergarten teacher actually compiled all of the pictures into a booklet for all the parents. People have been coming up to me and complimenting me on my lovely big head. I know it is early, but I think she is an artistic genius.

Note to Self:

2008-05-14T21:59:00.000-07:00

If your six year old wakes up every night for a week, he is about to get very sick.

Oh. This is Fun.

2008-05-14T15:10:00.001-07:00

I don't think I can adequately express, in a post you'd be remotely interested in reading, how awesome it is to have friends.

Real, close, lovely friends, who understand you, support you, laugh at you, and touch you (well, not touch me, but move me. Well, not really move me. I'm slightly too big, and they're slightly too little. I could hurt one of them.....oh, you know what I mean.)

I feel like one of those rare women you hear about who actually has a deeply meaningful relationship with other women.

For that, I am blessed (well, not really blessed, I haven't been to church since.....oh, forget it.)

Suffice to say, I love my friends. I love that we agree. I love that we disagree. It's a damn good feeling.

Sound Bites from the Dalai Lama

2008-05-14T11:15:00.000-07:00

My husband gave me a corny desk calender for Christmas. Quotes from the Dalai Lama. Ya think that's a hint about something? My inner-piece is just fine thank you (my inner-piece of apple pie, anyway!)

Today, there's a quote I wanted to share:

"Share your knowledge. It's a way to achieve immortality."

And, sister, it's a Hell of a lot easier than ensuring immortality through squeezing a squirming, pooping, squalling succubus out of your body!

Responsibility

2008-05-14T09:28:00.001-07:00

When I was young, hell, even when I was in my twenties, I was told that I wasn't responsible. I struggled through childhood with anxiety, depression and, frankly, a highly creative and acute mind. Whatever my diagnosis would have been it probably wouldn't have been right (It was the 70's) and I was left to deal with the perception and the labeling that I was "hyper", "irresponsible" and even "unreliable". I heard that. I heard it loud and clear. And though I fought to disprove it, I believed it long into my twenties until I started to truly differentiate myself, prove myself in a world that required that I follow through, finish things on time, colour in the lines. I spent so much time and energy thinking about responsibility...trying to take it, hoping people would see it in me.

And now I have too much.

By the time I was 27, I was married and pregnant and had more responsibility than I new what to do with. In a year, I had gained responsibility for not only myself but TWO other beings. And it was crippling. I was terrified of losing my husband (to a drunk driver, a red ant attack...anything!) and overcome by the responsibility of caring for a child.

I have always wanted children, always wanted to be a mom. It was a plan of mine to make sure I had children before I was 30 because I wanted to be young and fun and full of energy. I had a picture, a vision, of what motherhood would be like. I rushed to get married, rushed to get pregnant, rushed to create the picture of family and normalcy that I wanted to be in the middle of. And when my first child was born I realized how different the reality was.

I spent the first three months of pregnancy wishing I wasn't pregnant. I spent the first two years of my first child's life, wondering if I had made the right decision. I wasn't the fun, energetic mom that I thought I would be. I was young, but I was tired, and terribly anxious, I was depressed and scared and I felt alone in those feelings. I felt judged for those feelings. I felt like it wasn't OK to be bored at home with my beautiful baby. I felt that it wasn't OK to want to get away by myself every second that I possibly could, to dream of getting in my car and just driving far far away.

I have spent most of my thirties coming to grips with the weight of the responsibility of motherhood: learning to accept what I can and let go of the rest. Now, I can enjoy a little more, relax, let loose. But I am sad. I mourn for the those baby days those days I wished away, couldn't get through quick enough. That is the true cruelty of motherhood: that by the time you figure it out, it is over.

Oh, my aching knee, head, back, finger......

2008-05-13T20:37:00.000-07:00

Well, really I don't have all of those ailments, but I do have a bum knee. I've always wanted to say that, now that I can it really sucks. Especially trying to chase a busy child around.

I didn't realize how heavy a twenty three pound kid could feel ,untill I had a knee I could barely hold my own weight on, and there's alot of weight there. So I am now hobbling around, trying to keep my littlest one occupied without having to pick her up, and boy does she like to be picked up. Ask anyone who makes eye contact with her and is in arms reach.

I go up and down the stairs about thirty times a day, only now it takes me twice as long. I usually have this little girl clinging to me like a monkey, hanging on for dear life. She still remains my extra, yet squirmy appendage.

It doesn't matter how sick or tired moms get, they just can't seem to catch a break. You could be doubled over puking in a bucket, sitting on the toilet, and someone would still barge in to ask you where their keys, gloves, lunch, homework or anything that pops into their head is(hey, it's haapened to us all).

Feeling like this reminds me of when my older children were small and I got sick, and I mean sick. I was a single mom at the time. Man those times can be pretty scary. I couldn't get off the couch, which remained the safest place for me to be, as I could see every room (or at least doorway to each room) from there. The kids, being kids were happy just hanging out at home for a couple of days, mostly in their pajamas, eating whatever I could stand long enough to prepare.

Finally my sickness had gotten the better of me and I lay there feeling like I could die. I had fallen into that sort of half-sleep that new moms and tired worn-to-the-bone moms sometimes survive on. The house suddenly seemed much too quite. I opened my lead eyelids and it was like waking to a dream. I saw all of this white fluff, resembling barbie hair all over the floor, going up the stairs.

I was way too tired to yell, have a fit or make an attempt to clean it up, so I continued to lay there. Then out of the corner of my eye, from behind a chair comes my oldest child, proud as she can be, announcing she had just given her little brother a haircut. "Isn't he beautiful?" she smiles. And there her newly shorn brother stood, as happy as a clam, sporting a big gaping bald spot in the front of his beautiful blond hair.

He's beautiful alright, lucky he has you!!

Tired, Baby. So Tired.

2008-05-13T14:55:00.000-07:00

I'm tired. Sometimes, I'm better at fighting it than others. But today. I'm tired.

I sometimes think there must be something wrong with me. Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, maybe. Maybe I should go see my doctor, talk about this, get some tests. But then I'm too tired to make the appointment. And just the thought of hauling my jiggly bum downtown exhausts me.

So, I mumble (to tired to talk) to my mom, or a friend, or my husband. They just sort of look at me dumbfounded. Okay, maybe their rolling eyes are trying to tell me something.

Like, maybe, what else would a full-time mother, full-time employee, mostly full-time wife (sorry B. I'll try to do better), full-time short order cook, full-time on call nurse, occasional part-time housekeeper (and yes, I do do windows, toilets, laundry, and sort out toyrooms), full-time on call psychologist, and increasingly full-time blogger be?

Tired.

I've just self-diagnosed. It's Chronic Motherhood Syndrome. Yup. I have CMS. I hear you can learn to cope with the symptoms, but the root cause remains, though, it's thought not to be terminal. Thank God.

Oh, baby, I'm tired!

Women

2008-05-13T09:49:00.000-07:00

The following quote may not really have anything to do with being a mother, but as we all know being a mother has much to do with being a woman. We are constantly wrapped up in trying to find a way to be women, to be moms or to just be people.

"The complicated silence that has prevailed about woman's inhumanity to woman."While women may not be aggressive in the same way that men are, cross-cultural studies confirm that girls and women are equally aggressive in "indirect" ways,and mainly toward each other. Women envy and compete against other women instead of men and tend to deny this, even to themselves. Like men, many women also hold sexist beliefs and are often unaware of it. Women depend on each other for emotional intimacy and bonding, but their power to form cliques, gossip about and shun one another enforces conformity and discourages self-confidence and psychological clarity from girlhood on. Are women oppressed? Yes. Do oppressed people internalize the oppressor's attitudes? Without a doubt. Women, therefore, must acknowledge their own sexism and gender double-standards before they can practice sisterhood, resist sexism, treat other women ethically, and forge realistic and compassionate personal and political coalitions."

By Pamela Viddal

I know that many of you who've read this blog, our very personal feelings on being mothers, and people, have come away feeling somehow like we've managed only to see the down side of being a mom. This is so far off base. What we are doing is trying to listen to ourselves, and give ourselves the chance to say what we are honestly feeling, difficult or not. This is not earth-shattering, it doesn't expose us for the monsters we are, it just is what it is. Sometimes what is being said sounds cold and lonely, but in reality, that is how it feels some days. Other days, being a mother is wonderful, the most joyous, beautiful thing in the world. Should we be strung up for being the ones who have the gall to talk about it? I sure hope not.

We've said it before and will say it again, it never gets easy to open yourself up and share these things, but for us, it is very important. Some of you might say, talk to your friends, talk to your spouse, why put it out there for others to see? Why? Well for me, it is because I have finally found the courage and the voice that was hidden for so long, that is all, nothing more than that.

When I was younger, still a parent, I didn't have the voice to say the things I needed and desperately wanted then to say. Sure there were a couple of times when I was heartless enough to complain aloud. As quickly as the words left my mouth, I found other women condemning me for having the nerve not to enjoy every single moment of motherhood. Why do women do this to each other?

I can only speak for myself , but I do talk to my wonderful, loving, respectful and intelligent spouse about all of this, every hard -to -hear detail. The most incredible thing about it, is he really understands; he supports and he is proud that the person he has chosen to share his life with, feels, thinks and challenges beliefs.

I am so happy that I am loved enough to feel safe, unjudged, even when some of you might wonder how a woman who chose to be a mom could ask hard questions both of herself and other women.

Harder yet, is coming to the realization, that even today, in a climate of change, women still feel like they have to hold back, not upset the balance (news flash, there has never been balance). We would rather turn our backs , judge, ask why one has to stand up and say things that we know are real, and we've at one time or another, felt ourselves.

Quietly we are asked not to tip the scales, not to want for more, not to scream, if need be.

Sure some of you say, we've all felt it, just keep it to yourselves!!

Not on your life sister!!

Laughter

2008-05-12T15:56:00.000-07:00

There is something about the sound of a small child's laughter that almost brings tears to your eyes. Here I sit, watching two of my children play. My youngest, much, much younger than her siblings, usually plays roughly, pushing the "big kids" away, with a bit of frustration.

Now the two of them are taking turns hiding behind the long curtains. She screams with glee, breaking out in knee weakening laughter. Her big brother on, and on, enjoying each giggle. It does something to a parent's heart to hear this sort of unabashed sound. They love each other, they really truly lover each other.

He's a good big brother.

It's like the old 'Life Cereal' commercial used to say, "He likes her, he really likes her!!"

My Card

2008-05-12T14:39:00.001-07:00

Here is the card my most fabulous husband gave me for Mother's Day:

What a honey he is, and, he gets it!

What's Going On?

2008-05-12T12:35:00.000-07:00

Something seems to be going on. Some small shift in my world, and it feels like some small shift in the larger world. Why are we talking about this now? About the dirty, hard, gritty reality of motherhood? Why do we feel compelled to say out loud what we've kept hidden for so long from our friends, our partners, or families?

What kind of mother writes these things? What kind of mother does that make me?

I'm tired of hiding behind a false image, quite frankly, this false idol of "the Mother." It makes me angry that I have to. Who made these rules? We subjugate ourselves to this idea that we are these glorious, untouchable beings who, even at our absolute worst as parents, have to be placed firmly on a pedestal and worshipped.

Screw that!

I'm an incomplete, flawed, and scarred human being. Just like my husband. Just like my co-workers. Just like my mother. Just like you.

When I was a teenager my mom told me that she loved me more than anything, and she'd throw herself in front of a bus to save me, but that if she had it to do all over again, she wouldn't have had kids. You're shocked! What kind of mother would say that to her child!!!!!

I was shocked too. Before I became a mother. But, my mother loves me, and she did me an incredible service that day. She modeled for me the complexity and conflict of being a mother. She gave me the strength to know that my life has value, as her's did, and does, with or without children.

I'm angry. I'm pissed off that once I've had a child I am bound by these silent rules. I'm not allowed to express dissatisfaction. I'm not allowed to be unfulfilled. I'm not allowed to want more from my life than my family.

I have big dreams. Wild, crazy, mad dreams for myself. Should I pretend I don't? Should I internalize everything I hope for myself so that my children don't suspect they don't "complete me?" No!

What kind of mother do I want my children not only to have, but to see. The kind of woman who gives up everything for other people? Or the kind of woman who loves herself as much as she loves her kids?

It's pretty goddamn clear to me. And I'm unapologetic.

I'm carving out a life for myself, come Hell or high water. Just as I hope my children will. And if the life they find themselves in, or if the life they choose for themselves is not every little bit of everything they hoped it would be, I hope they have the courage to find their voice and shout it out. And I'll be there cheering them on!

Mother, or Friend?

2008-05-12T12:01:00.000-07:00

I think this is a question every one of us must face at some point. Are we more a friend or are we more a mother to our children? Should this even be questioned?

Having been a single mother, I think my experience is not exclusive, in that, at one point or another my children became more like friends than like children.

Not all of us struggle with this issue, certainly some find no issue in being their children's friends. For me it has been different.

When I was a single parent I tended to share more with my children, personal things; finances, worries and the responsibilities of our household. I know there will be some of you out there, shaking your head, saying this was mighty unfair to them. To us, at the time, it was the way it was, the way it had to be in order for us to get through the day-to-day.

Things have changed. I now have a wonderful, supportive partner, and the kids are happy, more carefree. Not saying that they weren't happy before, we all were very happy, we just had a much different life, a different dynamic.

I wonder however, how those days shaped who they are today. I have seen my older child struggle to find her place as a child, rather than an equal, or a friend. I do consider myself to be somewhat a friend to my children, but first and foremost for me, I must be a parent.

I don't want my children to depend on me as a friend. I feel strongly that they must find that in their peers, outside of their own families. However, I will always want them to be able to come to me as someone they love and trust.

Having been in the position where your children become surrogate partners (for lack of a better description), it is hard to say whether or not this relationship has been a detriment to them. I worry, I will always worry, that each choice I make in regards to my children will somehow cause them unforeseen damage. I guess this is the burden of all parents.

My only hope is, that I have given them enough strength and confidence to find their own way in this world.

Motherhood

2008-05-11T14:33:00.000-07:00

"Motherhood brings as much joy as ever, but it still brings boredom, exhaustion, and sorrow too. Nothing else ever will make you as happy or as sad, as proud or as tired, for nothing is quite as hard as helping a person develop his own individuality especially while you struggle to keep your own."

- Marguerite Kelly and Elia Parsons

Happy, Happy Day to You All.

2008-05-11T13:45:00.000-07:00

I wish for each one of us today, happiness. That is all, just simple happiness, a hot cup of tea, easy laughter with those you love and the knowledge that tomorrow we will wake up being as loved as we are today.

It is hard to write about our daily toils, complaining about those same people, but we all know deep within, our world is more colorful, softer and fuller with them in it.

Here's to the women who have given of their bodies, their time and themselves, to become moms.

Cinderella's Stepsisters

2008-05-11T10:37:00.000-07:00

When I was in university I had to analyse a piece of writing. I was looking for something that had meaning to me, and I connected with emotionally. Most of those years I was tired. I was a single mom of three small kids, living on a student loan, and alone in a city I'd never lived in before. My family lived too far away to help--as far away as Japan, and the kid's dad lived on the other side of the world.

I was lonely, scared, dog-tired, and poor. I would go to school all day, pick up the kids, play with them, make them supper, bath them, put them to bed, and then start my homework. It was hard.

But this one time, this one assignment, I had to analyse some one's writing. I found this. A speech by the Nobel Prize winning American author, Toni Morrison, to a graduating class at Barnard College (an all-female university). I cried as I read it. I want to share it with you:

Cinderella's Stepsisters

Let me begin by taking you back a little. Back before the days at college. To nursery school, probably, to a once-upon-a-time when you first heard, or read, or, I suspect, even saw "Cinderella." Because it is Cinderella that I want to talk about; because it is Cinderella who causes me a feeling of urgency. What is unsettling about that fairy tale is that it is essentially the story of a household--a world, if you please--of women gathered together and held together in order to abuse another woman. There is, of course, a rather vague absent father and a nick-of-time prince with a foot fetish. But neither has much personality. And there are the surrogate "mothers," of course (god- and step-), who contribute both to Cinderella's grief and to her release and happiness. But it is the stepsisters who interest me. How crippling it must have been for those young girls to grow up with a mother, to watch and imitate that mother, enslaving another girl.

I am curious about their fortunes after the story ends. For contrary to recent adaptations, the stepsisters were not ugly, clumsy, stupid girls with outsize feet. The Grimm collection describes them as "beautiful and fair in appearance." When we are introduced to them they are beautiful, elegant women of status, and clearly women of power. Having watched and participated in the violent dominion of another woman, will they be any less cruel when it comes their turn to enslave other children, or even when they are required to take care of their own mother?

It is not a wholly medieval problem. It is quite a contemporary one: feminine power when directed at other women has historically been wielded in what has been described as a "masculine" manner. Soon you will be in a position to do the very same thing. Whatever your background--rich or poor--whatever the history of education in your family--five generations or one--you have taken advantage of what has been available to you at Barnard and you will therefore have both the economic and social status of the stepsisters and you will have their power.

I want not to ask you but to tell you not to participate in the oppression of your sisters. Mothers who abuse their children are women, and another woman, not an agency, has to be willing to stay their hands. Mothers who set fire to school buses are women, and another woman, not an agency, has to tell them to stay their hands. Women who stop the promotion of other women in careers are women, and another woman must come to the victim's aid. Social and welfare workers who humiliate their clients may be women, and other women colleagues have to deflect their anger.

I am alarmed by the violence that women do to each other: professional violence, competitive violence, emotional violence. I am alarmed by the willingness of women to enslave other women. I am alarmed by a growing absence of decency on the killing floor of professional women's worlds. You are the women who will take your place in the world where you can decide who shall flourish and who shall wither; you will make distinctions between the deserving poor and the undeserving poor; where you can yourself determine which life is expendable and which is indispensable. Since you will have the power to do it, you may also be persuaded that you have the right to do it. As educated women the distinction between the two is first-order business.

I am suggesting that we pay as much attention to our nurturing sensibilities as to our ambition. You are moving in the direction of freedom and the function of freedom is to free somebody else. You are moving toward self-fulfillment, and the consequences of that fulfillment should be to discover that there is something just as important as you are and that just-as-important thing may be Cinderella--or your stepsister.

In your rainbow journey toward the realization of personal goals, don't make choices based only on your security and your safety. Nothing is safe. That is not to say that anything ever was, or that anything worth achieving ever should be. Things of value seldom are. It is not safe to have a child. It is not safe to challenge the status quo. It is not safe to choose work that has not been done before. Or to do old work in a new way. There will always be someone there to stop you. But in pursuing you highest ambitions, don't let your personal safety diminish the safety of your step-sister. In wielding the power that is deservedly yours, don't permit it to enslave your stepsisters. Let your might and your power emanate from that place in you that is nurturing and caring.

Women's rights is not only an abstraction, a cause; it is also a personal affair. It is not only about "us"; it is also about me and you. Just the two of us.

Happy Mother's Day Everyone

2008-05-11T09:43:00.000-07:00

Here is my wish for you, and for me. That your day today is happy. That however you envision a day that is made for you, you have it.

What a crazy ride this life is. What a crazy ride this motherhood thing is.

Today my entire family is here. My husband and our 5 kids. It's pretty rare that all of us are here together. Typically one of the kids is on the fly, or I'm running out or running away. They're all down the hall, now, together. Laughing, making the little ones giggle, my oldest daughter is playing a pretty song on the piano, my 14 year old has started cooking a meal she planned as my Mother's Day gift, and my husband is cleaning the kitchen and making me coffee.

I know that some of these posts can seem harsh, and that sometimes we come across as women who probably shouldn't have kids. But each one of us (and I know I can speak for my friends and fellow Motherhood Biters), regardless of how we rail and lash out here in this space, are soft and squishy on the inside. We talk about how hard, relentless, frustrating, and lonely motherhood can be. But none of us--not one of us--would be anything else.

Happy Mother's Day to all mothers. Whether you're the kind of mother who loves to read One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish 14 times in a row, or the kind of mother who cries at every Christmas concert you see your children in, or the kind of mother that works full-time out of the home, to pay the bills, or just maintain your sanity, or even, the kind of mother who starts a blog to voice how soul-cracking hard it can be to be a mother.

My best wishes to all of you.

Openly Closed.

2008-05-10T17:36:00.000-07:00

"Anyone who sees and paints a sky green and fields blue ought to be sterilized."

- Adolf Hitler

Let us all bear in mind, that we may never think alike or feel what others feel. What we see and feel is our own truth, formed from our own experiences.

For that we should never be made to apologize.

Holy Smoke! Whadda We Got Here!!

2008-05-10T01:07:00.000-07:00

Man, or woman, alive. We've gotten some extraordinary feedback! We started this blog because we wanted to start a discussion with women and mothers. We wanted to challenge the status quo. Are we all meant to be mothers? Should we all be mothers? Even when we become mothers, choose to be mothers, long to be mothers, is it the perfect fantasy that we're told it should be?

What happens when we have our children and discover that it's not what we thought or hoped? What happens when it doesn't complete us?

For some women--and we really do appreciate and acknowledge these women--being a mother is the best and most wonderful part of their lives. For us, all THREE of us, it's different.

We love our kids. We really, desperately love them. We've all been through different kinds of Hell with our choices and our lives: one of us has had to deal with the threat of a terminal illness when our children were babies, one of us has had 2 families, spanning 20 years (and many of those years were broke-poor-feed-my-kids-pancakes-every-night years), and the other escaped from a shitty life at 17 by running away, getting married, and finding herself through other people.

Our lives as mothers and people are real, and stinky, and muddy. We are real women, with real, honest emotions about motherhood and womenhood! We have breasts, we talk like truckers, and we love our kids.

Take us, or leave us. You don't have to like us. We're not looking for, or hoping for that. If you think we need medical help, or we struck a nerve with you that you didn't know you'd felt, we're glad. It's your opinion, and that's what this space is about.

This space isn't about finding childcare or sharing friends, it's about the bone-chilling understanding that we, though we're mothers, are people, and we fuck up. We want to share that and talk about it.

If you have an opinion, share it with us on this blog. We all have a voice and we want to hear yours. This is an anonymous space where you can come and say the things you don't feel safe to say with your sister, your neighbor, or your mother-in-law. But this space is not about personal attacks. Tell us what you think and feel about yourself and how you feel about being a mother. Other than that, please keep your vitriol to yourself.

Forget the shit that money makes the world go round. Baby, it's mothers that do.

Share with us. Whether we make you mad, or elevate you. As my great 'ol granddad used to say, "It takes peas and carrots to make a stew! So it takes all kinds of people to make the world!"

We hope we'll hear from you soon.

Ouch!

2008-05-09T14:25:00.000-07:00

Today we took our tiny little girl for her final toddler immunizations. It's funny to think, the same kid that makes you want to rip your ears off your head can make you feel so protective that your throat closes up.

My husband always tells me I talk tough when it comes to the kids, but when it really comes down to it, I am ready for a throw-down with anyone or anything that hurts them. He's right of course, he usually is. I rant, rave and complain regularly about how I can't stand the little beggars, but somewhere, somehow I wouldn't know what to do without them, all of them.

Well I digress. I don't know what it is about a small child, or a big child for that matter (another story) getting a needle and looking so helpless, especially when that child is your own, but it gets me every time.

I admit it I am a wimp, and I mean a WIMP when it comes to seeing my child hurting. So here we sit with this 23 lb little muffin smiling and acting silly as we prepare her for her shots. She counts as we remove one, then two arms from her little shirt, she giggles and wiggles. Then my wimpiness kicks in and I leave it all up to my sweet, relaxed husband, turn my head and hold back the tears.

If you could read my mind, love, what a tale my thoughts could tell...

2008-05-09T12:44:00.000-07:00

..Yah, and social services would be ringing my doorbell before I finished posting.

I try so hard to not be the grumpy mom. I smile, I consciously lower and soften my voice as a trained reaction to the inane standoff that inevitably happens when we are say,I don't know, doing THE EXACT same fucking thing that we do every morning! But underneath the smile, the kind, soft voice, reminding them to put on their shoes and their coats, I am cussing, shouting, committing horrific acts of violence and even having insane conversations with my other personalities.

"Honey, please put down the truck and go put your shoes on".

PUT YOUR FUCKING SHOES ON. HOW FUCKING HARD CAN IT BE? No, I don't give a flying fuck about your stupid fucking picture, put it the fuck down and put on your fucking coat you little shit. Or you know what I am going to take your little fucking shoes and I am going to throw them in the garbage along with all of the other stupid fucking shit you leave around the house. PUT YOUR FUCKING SHOES ON.

A New and Glorious Morn

2008-05-09T08:11:00.000-07:00

I had one of those rare moments today. You know, one of those parenting moments where it seems as though the sun's glorious rays have parted the clouds and fingers of light illuminate the world. One of those moments that make all the exhaustion, aggravation, and disappointment of mothering seem bearable.

As I stood at the kitchen sink, peeling boiled eggs for my breakfast, my husband was ushering our kids out to the van to take them to daycare. I glanced out the window and there was my six year old son, a casual and happy doddler, standing in the yard.

Wearing his Superman pajamas, with his coat on, but undone, his hood up (of course), and his brand new army fatigue rubber-boots.

I knocked on the window, and he looked up. He had such a look of joy and love on his face when he saw me, I laughed out loud and waved. He waved back. Then turned around to the sound of his dad calling him. He started leaving the yard, but when he got to the gate, he stopped, turned around, looked up at me, and blew me a kiss.

I'm sure today is going to be like any other: filled with all kinds of things that erode my spirit. But today will be a little bit different. I'm going to carry around with me that tiny glimpse of what makes this all worthwhile.

Worth It?

2008-05-09T07:00:00.000-07:00

"Some mornings it just doesn't seem worth it to gnaw through the leather straps."
-Emo Philips

No shit!

Is that new?

2008-05-08T15:48:00.000-07:00

Never did I think there would come a day when I would have to explain to my child that I not only needed but deserved something new. Be it a new pair of shoes, a pair of jeans, or a friggin' much needed new bra, I truly deluded myself into believing it would be no one's business, least of all a snot-nosed kid.

To my surprise my child somehow has this uncanny ability to sniff out anything new, and put it up for public scrutiny. "Oh, is that a new bag?" she chides, looking like she has been clad in hand-me-down rags her whole short life (which, by the way is getting shorter by the minute). This of course comes on the heels of taking her shopping for new shoes and of course the much needed accessories to go with the shoes, a whole new outfit.

Little does the snoopy little shit know that in fact my new, fancy, enviable bag is a diaper bag.

Privacy? Could You Define That For Me Please?

2008-05-08T14:12:00.000-07:00

Leave my shit alone!

2008-05-08T13:52:00.003-07:00

I spent most of my childhood going through all of my mother's possessions. I am pretty sure there was nothing that I didn't find (truly, she wasn't that interesting, or I was waaay dumber than I thought). I truly at that point had no idea of the pain and suffering I probably caused her.
Now, with three kids under nine, nothing of mine is my own. NOTHING. I can't put a tampon in without someone crashing through the door and standing there wide-eyed and giving a running commentary/questioning of EXACTLY what I am doing and why I am doing it. My perfume, my jewelery (which is costume, but is all I have thank you very much), my bubble bath, my comb, my scarves, my apricot scrub with MICROBEADS. Jesus. I just want a little freakin privacy. For mother's day this year I want to be able to go put on a pair of shoes from my closet and not have had them disappear into the tickle trunk or find that my Lush massage bar has been whittled into some sort of statue.
When I was young and I went through all my mom's stuff, I wondered why I did it. I assumed I was bored, that I needed to know everything that was going on in my house.. but a few year's ago I heard a theory that stealing from a parent or siblings room is an attempt to get closer to them.

That's just great, not only are they taking and wrecking my shit, but it is all my fault to begin with.

Gratitude.

2008-05-08T13:27:00.000-07:00

"Blessed is he (or in our case she) who expects no gratitude, for he shall not be disappointed."
-W. C. Bennett

Mom?

2008-05-08T11:33:00.000-07:00

I remember standing in the card isle year after year, struggling to find a card for my own Mother, a Mother that really didn't conjure up the feelings within me that, once again the rest of the world told me I should have. Instead I stood there time and again, trying to find the most generic card that didn't reflect on how her being there every step of the way for me had made me the girl, the woman I was or was about to become.

I more often than not ended up feeling like a foolish liar, handing over a card that was something that I couldn't really believe in. Why do we have to be forced to buy into the belief that Mom is the be all end all, I know I am not. I am just simply a Mom, a person, imperfect, unsure and most of the time short tempered.

I don't spend afternoons baking cookies, or ironing sheets. I struggle to find a few minutes a day where I can breathe, and have some time alone, I mean really alone (being in the bathroom with little fingers poking under the door doesn't cut it either).

I do love being a Mom, always knew I wanted to be one, but I am not sure that all it comes with is what I signed up for. Please don't get me wrong here, I know that one day all of this will be something we look back on and wonder how quickly it passed, but in the meantime I wonder what kind of Mom I really am.

Am I the Mom whose kids are standing in the card isle, pondering the validity of the sentiments on cards in regards to me, their plain, tired, grouchy Mom?

Reclaiming Mother's Day

2008-05-08T10:58:00.000-07:00

Oh, it's nice to be appreciated. I like it. I do (you're sensing a looming 'but,' aren't you?) I do like it. But, what does Mother's Day really mean to me, or my kids? It's such a cloying, sticky, canned event. I suppose if no one ever told my kids to thank me, they probably wouldn't, but does it mean something if it's forced?

Not to me.

It reminds me of the time I told my first boyfriend I loved him. Then I waited. He had to say something back, right? He didn't. So after a painfully long pause, about 4 seconds, I said, "Do you love me too?" His answer is irrelevant, though you can probably guess what it was, he was a cornered teenager hoping to get lucky. It had, not just the ring, but the clang, of insincere.

So what do I want instead?

Frighteningly, it occurs to me that I don't want to be thanked. I don't want a store-bought card, or a grocery-store bouquet. I want what I can't have. I want what I gave up to be a mother. I want my body back. I want that little flat in Paris I so easily pictured myself in. I want a handful of lovers, or at least the ease and spontaneity to have sex with my husband without an audience. I want, as the great Greta Garbo said, "...to be alone."

What we've created, with this Mother's Day monster, is not really about mothers at all. It's about every one else. It's forced, guilt-assuaging--throw the old girl a bone, get a little misty eyed at her sacrifice, and you're in the clear for the rest of the year. Sunday, I'm angelic. Monday, I'm a boot scraper.

It's okay. I get it. I'm not really bitter or angry. But when my family asks what super-fun thing we can do to celebrate my day--Mother's Day--I'm going to suggest a wild day starting with breakfast at McDonald's, followed by bowling, then a Disney movie, and finally supper at Chuck E. Cheese's.

I sure do hope they have fun.

Welcome

2008-05-07T13:02:00.000-07:00

Welcome to those whose visit is their first, we really want you to enjoy this space.

I certainly hope there will be more than just the two or three of us who will start to share. I am really excited to start hearing about every one's mothering experiences, good, bad or otherwise...and we all know there is a lot of otherwise out there.

Please share, share, share. There is never anything too big or too small to discuss, ask any husband who has ever had a hormonal wife, or in my husband's case just a miserable one.

If This Were Me...

2008-05-07T10:08:00.000-07:00

...the seam would have ripped under my arm, my underwear would be crawling up my bum, which I couldn't remove, because then my precious little bundle would fall, and there would be baby 'frope in my hair.

What a paragon of womanhood I am. Whaddya goin' do?

They Said it Would Get Easier With Time...

2008-05-07T08:00:00.000-07:00

When my kids were young, and I was in a state of perpetual half-sleep, which, by the way, the government should attempt to legalize instead of marijuana--the effects are nearly the same, without the munchies, and, well, perhaps without the high, just a lot of walking around in a semi-conscious state with enormous paranoia--anywho, I digress. When my kids were young, they, you know, THEY, told me that it would get easier when they got older.

THEY lied.

Every day that they grow, every year that passes and they appear more independent--no more diapers, no more bottles, no more spoon-feeding--they, in fact, become more needy and more demanding.

I love them. I do. I love my kids. I think they'll be wonderful people someday. But who the hell do I have to bribe or sleep with to get someday to be today!

I don't know if anyones cares, but...

2008-05-05T14:33:00.000-07:00

I think there might only be two of us interested or miserable enough to either be reading or writing here, haha. It is interesting that you bring up this topic, working outside of the home. Today as I was sitting on my round, ample bottom, trying to exercise some of my girth off at the gym, when I read an article (well more like perused it very quickly, or I might have died from overexertion while pedalling frantically) in a local magazine about another article that was published in 2006 in Forbes. I now have to get my grungy little hands on it.

The original article was geared towards men on how to choose a desirable partner that will both be a reasonable wife and a possible candidate for having children with. To my surprise a woman's career choice and earning potential was of hot debate. To clearly detect whether a woman would be a suitable mate to a man, Forbes suggests that he (the man, of course) must consider that if he chooses a woman who earns more than a meager (by today's standards) 30k a year, she might not be the best choice. Instead it would be better if he chose a woman who did not have any post-secondary schooling, making reference to cashiers and such, as these women would be more satisfied staying home rearing a family. WHAT??? What bloody century are we living in? If she does have a formal post-secondary education there is the fear that she may be more interested in pursuing her career in lieu of bearing, let alone raising their proposed children.

Why in the world are women under such scrutiny when it comes to making a choice...you don't hear men sitting around with their buddies asking one another whether they plan on going back to work once they become parents. For women though, it is completely acceptable for anyone and everyone to form some kind of opinion on what is best for the children. Does it make one more of a mother, and therefore more of a woman, if she chooses to stay home? Why can't she continue to pursue he career, as, more than likely her spouse has?

In my humble little opinion I think the greatest thing we can do for ourselves and our families is to be satisfied. Be true to ourselves if we can....in the words of a very bright friend (I am not sure if they are her words or if she is just astute enough to have found them), listen to that tiny little voice that is all too often ignored or hushed.

Being a parent is hard, that is all, and giving up, putting aside or waiting is not always an option. We women who are moms should support and be the voice for others when it comes to choice. I for one cannot believe that an article like this is written or given any kind of credence today, it was hard to swallow decades ago, but today?

I am glad, and more often than not, envious of those who have found the time, strength and courage to do what makes them happy and whole. Sometimes being a mom isn't enough, and that should be alright. Kids are fabulous but one has to remember that once, no matter how long ago, you were just you, childless.

Do You Have to Work?

2008-05-05T11:38:00.000-07:00

So there I am, at a family event (an in-law family event), sticking out like a Janis Joplin poster at a Conway Twitty concert, wondering how a city-girl, albeit moderately big city (but I cherish dreams of vanishing into obscurity in a behemoth of a city some day) married a small-town boy from a farm family. I'm too opinionated, too anti-authority, and too liberal to really fit in. I think some of them are a little scared of me. I might corrupt to many young minds with my high-falutin' ways, and, honestly, I'm a pretty consistent high-faluter.

I was hanging out in a corner, overseeing an intense and heated game of Spiderman Sorry!, when I was introduced to a friend of my husband's uncle. She was a bright interesting woman, with a ready smile, and I liked her. We chatted away about kids, board games, and the weather, until she sprang the question, in a sympathetic and warm-hearted way, "Do you get to stay at home with the kids, or do you have to work?"

Now, I'm no shrinking violet. I've done my time. All told, I've spent 12 years as a stay-at-home parent. 7 years with the first family, and 5 years with the next. I've wiped bums and noses, made more grilled cheese and peanut butter sandwiches than should be legal, organized, and avoided, play-dates, and seen enough episodes of Barney and Caillou to drive me to the verge of hari-kiri, but, after years of miserable self-sacrifice, and even more miserable moaning about it, I still felt the soul-compressing guilt of going back to work. If it wasn't for my husband, who forcibly insisted I work, and friends who told me if I didn't go back to work they'd hurt me, I might have let my guilt, and the looks on people's faces that told me I'm only a good mother when I am with my kids 24 hours a day, keep me home.

So here is my answer: It's not easy. But for me, now, today, it's not do I get to stay home? It's do I have to, do I really have to stay home?