Whoops

So this morning I got up and made cinnamon buns for breakfast. First time ever, and it showed. They were fine, I suppose, but for the effort I made it would have been better to just walk four blocks to the bakery which is open at 7:30.

My son went out into the living room and found the stack of old tea tins his father had, in a fit of frustration last night when he was trying to cook a fancy meal for some friends for this evening, cleaned from our cupboards. Unfortunately his fit of fury didn't encompass cleaning the tins of the tea they contained, so we had the inevitable "loose tea on hardwood floor" mishap this morning. Thank God for handheld vacuums, you just KNOW some parent invented those.

The tea tins themselves had labels and assorted sealing stickers on them, and my son presented one of them to me and pressed it, sticky side down, onto my left palm. A small, black, round sticker. A few moments later he found another and stuck it to my right palm and I very humourously noted -- "hey, just like stigmata!"

"Yeah!" he says enthusiastically. "Stigmata!"

This is what passes for religious education on Sunday mornings in this house.

Oh, yes, and I'm so glad I am teaching my son these loaded religious words so irreverently. This is going to go over GREAT when we visit the in-laws this summer. 

Clearly needs more time in school

This afternoon I took myself off to the hairdresser. I have finally found another hairdresser I like, or rather, one that I think I like but it's me after all and it will take a good year of good haircuts before I really decide I like her. At the moment I'm just happy I don't hate the haircut within minutes of leaving the salon.

And enough of my neuroses.

So it's a nice salon, they do the head / shoulder massage prior to the hairwashing, offer tea / coffee / flavoured water etc., and they often do really nice hair washing as well, with lots of scalp massage and pleasantly aroma-ed products. So I settle myself into the lounge chair for the head wash, already juuuuusst starting to relax ... 

(having spent the morning chasing my child all over creation because of the people who decided to hold a birthday party for a three year old at an ENORMOUS OPEN PARK, and then dilly around not entertaining / engaging said three year olds, so that my kid got bored within about five minutes and decided that he didn't WANT to be at the party any more and hey! thick bushes hundreds of feet away! Let's go THERE! Did I mention he was the only boy, so while all the girls spent their time calming decorating their crafts with stars and sequins and feathers he was all "I've had it with this sh*t, I will consent to putting a single HUGE pompom on my craft but THAT'S IT. And then HEY BUSHES!" I called it minimalist.)

The fact that she held the shower head completely flush with my scalp should have been my first clue that something was amiss. It was just ... odd. Strange feeling. I mean, I admit that I like the pressure of the water jets close up, but the actual hardness of the shower head was a little strange. And then she shampooed and put in the conditioner and started the head massage which started out fine and then culminated in her pinching my head all over. You know the kind of pinch where you use all your fingers and sort of slide your fingertips in a pinching motion along someone's skin, not actually pinching but that same motion? Firmly and decisively? Yeah, that. She did that TO MY HEAD. All over. Staccato pinching. Let me tell you, if you need to know: NOT RELAXING.

And THEN she splashed the water over my face, and apologized profusely while mopping me up and be a little less gentle than someone should be when wiping near someone's eyes, and culminated in the most vigorous head scrubbing / drying that I have ever received, which included her trying to wipe the water out of my ears with all the gentleness of someone trying to calm a frenzied and excited dog whose been out in the water, and ... 

and I couldn't help laughing. You know the kind of laughter that you try and suppress, because it's really not appropriate to the situation, because after all I'm in an uptown salon and there are other customers and let's face it, I'm laughing AT this woman and her bizarre head pinching massage, and just thinking about it still makes me smile and kind of chuckle. 

So anyway, that was my day. The haircut is nice, the hairdresser herself was her usual pleasant self, and now we're home and eating souvlaki and potatoes and greek salad and all in all it's a nice day. But the pinching? Still makes me laugh. 

Life goes on

Life seems to have settled down for a bit.  I pulled up an email to a friend today at work and thought ... damn, I have nothing to say. There's nothing out of the ordinary going on, and clearly I am spending less time at the computer because I haven't blogged nor answered an email in two weeks or more (apologies to anyone I owe an email to!) The weather has been nice, work has been busy, and I am just trying to sit back and not work at home and to enjoy the moment more.

There are a couple of posts sifting around in my head, which I hope I'll get around to writing, because at least in my head they are very interesting. So we shall see.

Today on the way home, my son informed me that Goldilocks is a "very rude girl!" So there's your nugget of wisdom for today. You're welcome.

Socialized medicine

So the other day I went and picked up my kid at his daycare, and found a piece of paper in his mailbox from the Community Health Nurse. It was printed from Vancouver Coastal Health, the overreaching health care administration for our area, and it noted my son's vaccinations from birth, and showed me which he was still missing. 

I've never dealt with the Community Health Nurse. I have certainly never been in touch with VCH, but they know my kid's name, his ID numbers, his family doctor, his address, and all his immunizations. They also, interestingly enough know exactly where he goes to daycare. 

It's not that I mind these various offices having this information. It's not a big deal. It just serves to remind me that the government knows all. 

I am, however, slightly offended that the bottom of the form tells me which shots he still needs as opposed to what they recommend, and gives me a due date. Because socialized medicine aside, I still believe as his mom, *I* get to decide. And chances are, I'm going to vaccinate on time. Because I believe in it, after that whole kidney thing. (Which, for the record, he would not have had if he'd had all his vaccinations. It was a completely preventable infection that left scarring on his kidney. Trust me, I am ALL FOR vaccinations after three scary days in the hospital and follow up for six months afterwards. Not to mention that whole burning-of-the-hand thing that occurred at the same time that required several visits to a plastic surgeon. GO VACCINES.)

Where was I?

Oh, right. I'm totally FOR vaccines, I just think that I get to decide where, when, and who, and I don't need them dictating to me.

But I suppose I get to take the whole package, for better or for worse.

Gardening

I have lived in a large city, in small dwellings, for almost a decade now. I am used to manicured lawns and plants that live in pots. How this came about, I don't know. My parents bought, and still live in, a house with a double lot; the second lot was, when I was a child, almost entirely vegetable garden, surrounded by fruit trees. Weekends were spent in the garden; some of my earliest memories are of 'helping' my father plant things, or picking vegetables straight from the garden. 

Gardens were plentiful. My grandmother had a large one, lovingly tended. My great-aunts, with whom I spent a fair amount of time, had a lovely one with lots of special rose bushes. The only relations who didn't have a garden were my father's parents, who had moved into a condo by the time I was around, but my father's father had grown up on a farm and had kept a garden outside of London to feed his young family through the war during the rationing time. They were no strangers to natural things.

Let's not forget for a moment here that my mother is a biologist by education and a park naturalist by profession. I should be a total green thumb if genetics bred true.

Alas, somehow or other I managed to miss the gardening gene. I haven't even managed to keep potted plants alive, either on my many balconies or in my office. I am allergic to places where people haven't tred, and feel bizarrely uncomfortable at my in-laws place, a 10 acre spread 10 miles from a small rural town. We are both throw-backs, The Man and I.

However, we live now in a place that has a 400 square foot patio with a great deal of greenery about. When we bought the place we saw all of it, carefully potted and trimmed and manicured and we thought -- well, isn't that nice! No lawn to mow! It's plants and bricks. We like it a lot, although I know it wouldn't be to everyone's tastes, because it seemed low maintenance.

ha ha ha ha ha.

Well, ok. It is low maintenance compared to what both our parents still cope with. It requires from us a few weekends work a year, which is nothing when you consider that my father has probably spent every nice weekend for the past forty years in his garden. But it needs trimming and pruning, weeding and clearing and cleaning and sweeping, and then something must be done with all the sweepings and prunings and in the end, it's actually work, not just a place to sit and enjoy. 

We are slowly putting together a critical amount of gardening tools, and slowly figuring things out, and I bit the bullet earlier today and, while The Man was out doing our grocery shopping for the week, The Boy and I went into the backyard and worked. For two hours or more, cleaning and trimming and sweeping and then cleaning and sweeping again. 

Those bricks that were so pristine when we bought the place were kept that way through pesticide, and we are not just morally opposed to poisoning the environment on purpose (any more than we already are), but also we have a small child here and putting poison on something he wants to run around on barefoot just seems like asking for trouble. And so I have a small pointy shovel to clear out the plants and the dirt and the moss from among the bricks and can I just mention that clearing between 400 square feet of bricks? TAKES A LONG FREAKING TIME.

But for all this complaining? It was really oddly satisfying. For the first time in my life, I kind of got how satisfying it is to work in a garden, to do something and see the difference, to have not just, for example, a clean house (as one does often when one puts in work) but a thing of actual real beauty to enjoy. And the work was almost zen like, moving from one brick to another brick, sweeping it up, starting again, clearing the dirt and the grime and the seedlings away. Very meditative and soothing, which is actually something I need more of in my life.

****

Having said all that, don't think that I'm planning to ever get a larger garden. One this size, with this amount of work, is probably pretty much perfect. A few weekends of zen. 

And a lot more of enjoying it, just sitting back there, drinking a cider. Or for today, a margarita. It is the long weekend, after all, and lovely and warm and sunny here in Vancouver. 

Which is what I'm going to go and do now. 

Screw expensive toys

For the past two days my kid has been utterly captivated by a dollar store plastic dinosaur and a cardboard egg carton, which is the dinosaur's house. Or mansion, really. It does have twelve rooms after all. 

Mental notes

So why is it that, when I switch offices, I hand back in six (6) keys and am given two (2)? We're switching from a key-based system to a 'security fob' system whereby they can program certain doors to open for certain people, so I need only a single fob for all the common doors, and then a single for my office. God bless technology.

 

****

 

Near my house was a terribly ill-placed car glass replacement store. Ill-placed, in that it was located on a corner with little to no parking, and of course PARKING is key to a place where you need to drop off your car. The corner was always congested and, because it was near a busy street, ripe for car accidents as people tried to make the corner, got blocked by traffic, and others had to slow. So the place decided, wisely, to move.

 

And what replaced it? Another car glass replacement store. Call me crazy, but often when a business shuts down or moves, THERE IS A REASON. And while another dissimilar business may succeed there, the SAME DAMN BUSINESS? Seems just a poor idea to me.

 

****

 

The people who installed the blinds in my office conveniently put the blind pull on the left side. Which is fine until you realize that the people who put in the desk put it on the left side, and there's a bookshelf over it, so now if I want to pull down the blinds I need to clear off the back part of the desk, sit on it, scoot myself to the very corner (it's a U-shaped desk) and reach WAAAAYYY back over and behind the bookshelf to find it. No one's fault, it's just a comedy of errors. Which is working life in this place. But at least it's a comedy.

 

****

 

My child has decided that the new daycare has too many children. "I only like it a little bit", he says. "There are too many kids." The plight of the introvert in the extrovert world. I can't explain this to him, I can't explain that while he likes to sit back and not be bothered some times, 75% of the population doesn't really get that. I also can't explain to him that 25 kids and four adults is actually pretty good; for the rest of his educational career he'll be lucky to get that kind of ratio. And merely saying, "Well, get used to it, kid." feels kind of heartless. But really? That's the truth.

****

This afternoon I picked up my kid from the daycare, and as usual had a chat with one of the people there about The Boy's day. This is someone I don't know well yet, but she came over and looked at me with a look of great disappointment. "He didn't eat his lunch today," she says with a terrible grimace, a sorrowful look. "He ate two bowls of snack, though, I guess he needed something to keep him going."

We had scrounged around for lunch today, Friday, the day before grocery shopping, but had come up with canned peaches, crackers and cheese, and a peanut butter and jam sandwich with no crusts; not his usual but certainly not that bad. But the scramble made me feel guilty, so all I heard instead was "You made a really lousy lunch that your kid wouldn't eat! What is he supposed to survive on??!" It was the terribly sorrowful look that got me. I suppose perhaps she meant to look apologetic, that he didn't eat, that it was somehow their fault. Which is funny, because I would never blame them for his not eating. Although for some reason, quite clearly, I'd blame me.

****

There's something to learn from that but instead I'm going to have a glass of wine and mull over the fact that the sleeves on the sweater I'm knitting aren't quite the same. I think at the end of the glass of wine it's going to matter much less to me than it did before I poured the glass.

Parenting a three year old

My sister told me several weeks ago that "the person who coined the term "terrible twos" clearly never made it to three. Snippets of conversation from today:

The Boy has apple slices in his lunch. He doesn't want to eat them. He decides instead that taking his toy plastic screwdriver to them is a good idea.

Me: N, please don't do that with your food.

[chop] Apple flies everywhere.

Me: N, didn't I just say not to do that?

Note: this is NOT the first time I have said this today.

Me: N, didn't I just ask you ... never mind. You're three.

Him: Yes I am. That's why I do that. 

Earlier today, he asks for something ... candy? A treat? A toy? I can't even remember. I'm trying to make lunch, whatever it is on the kitchen counter requires supervision. I say no, after lunch, I'll get it for you later. He attempts to climb up and get it. I move it. He is put out, tries something else. I move it. Etc. 

Him: Mommy! I want that!

Me: I know.

Him: I want it! I don't have it!

Me: What you don't have is an ounce of self-control.

Him: No, I don't. But YOU do.

Me: Yes, yes, I do. That's why you're still alive. 

In the end ...

There's no water on the floor, but the lack of a dishwasher control panel suggests I will be spending a great deal of time tomorrow waiting for the repairman. Which is a shame since work will be positively delightful now that I can use the bathroom.

Ya win some, ya lose some

Today I have:

* a security fob that opens doors and lets me (sweet mercy!) use the bathroom. SCORE!

* a phone that rings (although it was of course set on TOP VOLUME and scared the living bejeezus out of me when it rang this morning. Also because it's a new VOIP phone and has a strange ring so this morning before the caffeine had hit there was a LOUD NOISE AND DEAR GOD WHERE IS IT COMING FROM???!! AIIIIEEEEE. Ah. Yes. The phone. Amazing that I managed to sound even remotely coherent when I answered. My heart was going about ten miles a minute.)

But I also have:

* a dishwasher whose control panel no longer lights up and only allows me to press start and pray that it decides to wash and not just rinse or ... I don't know, spray water everywhere.

* a dishwasher that is making some seriously disturbing (and probably expensive) noises which makes me think that the last option, above, is imminent.

On being (and becoming) a mother

Today I was given two hours of extra sleep, a mug with scribbled colours on it, and what I believe is a handprinted t-shirt. The last hasn't been opened. So far, along with the tea in the mug and the pancakes, it has been an excellent mother's day.

********

As I was puttering around this morning putting things away, my child came across the dry erase activity book that I bought for him for his fourth birthday -- almost a year away, I know, but I had a gift certificate, and he found the book before I could put it away. He's fascinated by it, and has done all the math exercises in it. At the end of the math section, there's a page for you to write your own equations, and he was sitting there remembering what we had done a few days ago, muttering under his breath, "two .... plus ... one ... is .... three. Four ... take away ... four ... is .... " I didn't catch the end bit, but I suspect it wasn't correct; we haven't done the concept of zero in his adding and subtracting. We only tried that page once, but it seems enough for him -- once is enough so that if he's interested, he'll know it perfectly the next time.

Interestingly enough for a child who likes to read, he is not at all interested in the 'language arts' section of the book, but is fascinated by the math and the puzzles, especially the teeny sudoku, which he has done several times with his parents.

The first day he rested at daycare, I picked him up and asked if he slept. No, they reported, he just lay on his bed with the big kids (five year olds) and read. "And he was actually reading!" one of them exclaimed. "The whole sentences and paragraphs!" I nodded. They are wondering now if they can teach him to read in his head, since his reading out loud can disturb the other children. I shake my head, and kind of laugh, and they laugh with me because how ludicrous is it to expect a three year old to read in his head? Totally insane and not insane at all, since he can actually read and this is insane enough in and of itself.

However, his latest favourite activity is not reading or puzzles, but making up his own language. Sometimes he talks gibberish and tells me it is French, or Spanish. I have no idea when he learned that those were languages and sound different from English. Sometimes he will actually tell me what it means. "Doof! means go away and come back!" he tells me. "And Dook! means go away!" He remembers it, too, and three days later expects me to remember, as well, what "schmeltify" means. It's no wonder I get confused. I appreciate this exploration of language a great deal, but seriously, it is the most aggravating thing. I cannot now be expected to know what the hell he means by all these crazy words, and sometimes getting him to talk regular english is difficult. 

I also have a three year old who still, two years on, bangs things on our mirrored closet doors even though we have told him hundred times not to. Who decides that taking his stepping stool up onto his bed to reach something is a good idea, who demands a granola bar or other packaged food be opened for him and eats only a single bite. Who cries when he cannot have juice, but can be persuaded to drink water if we tell him it's "special dinosaur water". Who continually chases one of the cats and is surprised when the cat eventually gets fed up and scratches him. We never punish the cat. 

He still shrieks when he's frustrated, hits me when he's really angry, and demands completely unreasonable things. He tells me he will watch the Batman movie and the Dinosaur movie when he's four years old (fat chance, kid). He loves his spiderman shoes above all else, because they light up when he walks, and he asks to be carried when we walk more than three blocks, even though I am often told that he's one of the best walkers in the daycare and can easily tramp through the woods for over an hour. 

He tells amazing and nonsensical stories and has to be reminded over and over that he cannot touch the hot stove. He will eat almost anything and has finally decided that he loves yogurt above all other foods (so much so that when we are out, he asks to go to the IGA for more, even though normally you couldn't drag him there kicking and screaming) even though three weeks ago he was frequently heard to declare he hated the stuff.

********

He is a complex being, full of amazing smarts and a lack of common sense that makes me grind my teeth together and want to pull my hair out. And every once in a while, when he runs ahead while we're walking to the park and he declares "I'm the leader!" and stops at the street crossings, I think, My God, it's a little tiny human being. A real one. One that looks more and more like a kid, whose head is becoming more in proportion to a little body that is losing more and more of its baby / toddler chub and becoming long and lean and able to climb fences and leap tall buildings in a single bound. And I made him.

He is less and less a part of me. Three and a bit years ago we were literally one being, and three and a bit years later he is his own person and he has experiences that I know nothing of. He has a whole part of his life that I am not involved in, which was very hard to take two years ago, but is easier now. I can't help but feel a lump in my chest knowing that that part of his world might not always treat him gently, like I do. The world he shares with me is kind and caring and protective, because I make it so. I would do anything to make it so for him, and I wish I could make his entire life that way. But I can't, so I just hope that it is as kind to him as it can be, and that any of life's small cruelties are mitigated by the kindness he knows at home.

I'm still new at this mothering thing, and I still wonder if I know what I am doing. Perhaps I always will. But like most mothers before me, I know this much is true: I think about him all the time, I try and make his world as wonderful as it can be, and I love him more than I ever dreamed was possible. This motherhood gig is the hardest thing I have ever done, and I wouldn't change it for the world. 

Today

I woke up this morning feeling hideous -- tired and icky and like I'd rather curl up and sleep the day away than get up. So I decided then and there that a picnic was in order.

It's been a week of moderate stress, so we just decided to treat ourselves -- to breakfast pastries instead of whole wheat toast, to ready made deli sandwiches, to nice juice and watermelon and chocolate. And we got in the car and drove to Deep Cove, a place I'd never been, and spent the day picnicking on the beach. We wandered about, picked up crabs from under the rocks on the beach, tossed rocks into the water, walked out onto the pier, played on the playground, and then went to the ice cream store on the way back.

We drove back into town and did a few errands along the way which made us feel terribly virtuous and like we had Accomplished Something with our day, and then went and bought cider, steaks for the bbq, potatoes for roasting and asparagus to go with it, and I think that there might be a movie later on. Who knows.

Man, this treating ourselves nicely sure is great. And a nice antidote to a frustrating week.

Oh, and the pink eye is mostly gone, with some moistening eye drops and hot cloths and all that stuff. Feels MUCH better today. Damned dry eyes and dry office air and staring at a computer and an office kitchen that last week didn't have filtered water (dehydration adding to the problem) and damned pipes at that damned establishment that don't provide tap water that I want to drink. (I'm not being fussy: the water fountains all say "Flush for a FULL MINUTE before drinking", and DAMN, I am not drinking something that needs to be FLUSHED.)

This Friday ...

... I have:

* a new office

* a new daycare for my child

* a clean house

I don't have:

* an office phone that rings, for no particular reason

* an office key that works

* an office security fob so I can access my office and (for the LOVE of PETE) the BATHROOMS

Which is better than earlier this week when everything had been set up and everyone else was working away when I didn't have:

* a computer that would boot up

* a phone that would route calls to me (although I could call out, which however nice, meant I didn't discover the previous problem for two days.)

I also have:

* a crapload of work, because of course everyone and his dog emails me the week I am a.) moving b.) having problems with my computer and c.) hardly ever there given I'm settling my kid into a new daycare

* a husband who is working late

* a cranky and tired and somewhat stressed kid who's been dealing (well) with a new situation all week

aaaannnnndd

* what I think is my THIRD case of pink eye this year. I have terribly dry eyes. They pick up everything.

And so in light of that, I also have:

* A FRICKING BIG GLASS OF WINE.

The resilience of children

Yesterday's weepy moment on behalf of The Boy brought up for a lot of self-doubt -- about my choice to work, my childrearing, and whether I chose the right centre. After all, we'd had a choice, and one that was good and that The Boy said he preferred and I went with my own gut and Dear God what if I was wrong???!! AIIIEEEEEE!

(Please note that while I sound like a complete basketcase on this blog, these are things that ran through my mind for a while until I chatted with The Man about other things and read a few blogs and started back on my book and completely forgot about it. I'm neurotic, I admit, but not so much so that I was up all night biting my nails over this.)

So I talked to The Boy again this morning about the daycare situation, and we talked about what would happen, and he seemed calm and accepting and fine about it all. We arrived, unloaded our things into our cubby, and he peeked into the main room. And in we walked, and he found something he liked to play with. And then I chatted with the teachers, and suddenly noticed I had no idea where he was. 

He hadn't, as some other children might have, taken off to play with the group. He'd moved over another table to play with something new, on his own, but he sure was having fun. And I went over and played a bit and said "Mummy has to go soon." which provoked no adverse response, so a few moments later I said "I need to go, do you want to go to the goodbye window or say bye here?" 

I expected tears.

What I got was a "bye!" and a kiss and a kid who kept on playing. So I left. 

When I arrived back there at noon, he was seated at the lunch table ready for lunch. Which I hadn't made for him, assuming I'd be back before then. Luckily I came prepared with a sandwich, which I handed over, and he happily sat there with his new friends and ate. And half an hour later when lunch was over, I asked if he wanted to go home, he said ....

"No."

Two other kids, who've taken it upon themselves to take him under their wing, both asked me if he would be staying for quiet / nap time, and seemed obviously disappointed when I said no.

I almost had to drag him out of the place with bribes of mommy's new office with the chair that turns! and treats at the grocery store! and shows!

You could say it went well.

This centre, with 25 children, I thought would be very overwhelming. It is overwhelming enough for me. It's a little like starting a new job -- it takes a while to meet everyone and get used to the place and figure out how it all works. And it's not surprising it takes a while for him too.

One of my colleagues has a son who attends another preschool centre in the same complex, and she tells me that when he started, the other kids weren't very friendly. They didn't always let her son play with them, and said things like "You're not our friend, you can't play here / with that toy / with us." As kids sometimes do. And I was not at all looking forward to going there and watching my wee one's face as his peers pushed him out of the welcoming circle.

But here's where I know I made the right choice: this centre focusses the children on friendliness. On helping each other. On the concept that everyone is there to play, so no one is ever excluded. And it has obviously paid off in spades, because the children are welcoming and kind. They don't all seek him out, but no one excludes him. Two or more kids have taken him in, and are keen to show The Boy the cubby spots and the lunch spots and how things work, and it makes my heart swell to see how welcome he is, how caring they are and how well he is doing. And it's not just because he's happy; it's also because I love the fact that his new friends are so nice, and hopefully, when he's not the new kid any more, he will take good care of the next new kid. These kinds of skills -- kindness to strangers. inclusion. friendliness. welcoming. -- these are so great to have, and I'm thrilled he's at a place where he might pick them up. 

There's no telling how tomorrow will go. Maybe the other kids will be bored with teaching the new kid. Maybe he will cry and want to go home. Maybe it will be even better than today. Who can tell? But today? Today was great. 

Aaannnndddd

This evening in bed, he started to cry. "I was scared. Mommy was gone! And it was going to be a long time!"

And my heart peels outside of my body, and I start thinking ... I don't have to work, maybe I should just quit my job, the poor baby, he needs his mommy!

All my talk about how good this is for him sounds like hollow attempts to justify my continuing to work. 

And oh, the guilt. Honestly? It's overpowering. And the hardest part is knowing that I will never ever know if this is the right decision. Not until he's 50 and hasn't had to invest his hard earned money in too much therapy.

Joy and sorrow

An hour after I left the daycare -- which happened, I might add, with little fanfare and no tears at all -- I called and asked how he was. "He's fine," they said. "He's not interacting with us or the children much, just walking around and checking things out. He's definitely ok, but you probably don't want to be too much longer."

Half an hour later I was back, and he was indeed fine, but hugged me tight and didn't want to let go and insisted we go home. Which we did. 

It was true, he was fine, but he was holding it together. And so we spent the rest of the day, one on one, me trying to pay as much attention as I could so he felt a little stronger, a little more loved, a little more resilient. We talked about how this was hard, but it would get easier. We talked about how brave he was, that sometimes you need to be brave in new places with new people, about how proud I was of him. He looked at me with his big eyes and told me he wasn't brave anymore, he didn't want to be brave anymore, and I couldn't have been more proud of him. For being that brave, and for it being that hard for my poor little shy introverted son, and for doing it anyway.

We have a long road to go -- he confessed to me that he neither ate nor used the washroom while I was gone. "I didn't want to." and that's something that will -- obviously! -- have to change. But he's coping, and he's learning, and while it's hard to see it, I would far, far rather have him learn it here, where the teachers are loving and the kids are kind, than in grade school where the teachers are too busy to help, and the kids learn how to be mean. 

We came home, and read books, and ate lunch and read more books, and played a little and made some scones and read more books and made dinner and watched a show because mommy was completely tuckered out. All this extra time with him is so great, and I feel wonderful that extra time with me feels restorative to him, I am so glad I provide that comfort and that grounding. At the same time ... I don't know if stay at home moms spend all their energies entertaining the kids all day, but if they do I don't know how they do it -- my heavens it's tiring! At least at work when I need a break I can get up and have one ... at home, there are no coffee breaks. At least, not without tv shows. 

I suppose if I did it more often, or hadn't ever gone back to work, I'd be better at it. But I feel kind of sad and guilty at how bad I am at this. Of course I have done the SAHM thing once a week for the past two years, but somehow one day just doesn't seem as bad as the four or even five I will have this week as we acclimatize. I love my kid more than life itself, and I feel horrible that spending a whole day with him is so tiring for me. 

Then again, reading the blogs of SAHMs often seems to have a recurring theme of "my GOD I'm so tired and getting impatient with these kids!" so I suppose I am not alone. 

I am so proud of him for being so strong, and so heartbroken that he has to be; so glad to spend time with him, and so guilty for being so tired at the end of it and needing my own break. Up, down, up, down. This parenthood thing is hard.

New daycare, day two

Today I actually get to leave him alone there for the first time. There's no telling how this will go; I can see every possibility from wailing hysterically to complete acceptance. 

The one thing I can't see is him wailing hysterically for much longer than five minutes after I leave, because he's just not that kind of kid. Mostly because he's timid enough that he will be too shy to have that kind of attention for long after I go, and he'd prefer to retreat inside himself and nurse his wounds until I return. Not an attractive option, but it does at least offer the possibility that he will find something to entertain himself during that retreat.

I guess in the end it is all about figuring out how to handle himself in public, how to self-soothe, how to distract himself, how to cope on his own. These are all essential skills, ones that I hope he won't have to use as an adult and older child, but that I know he will. I want him to have these skills so that if life hands him something terrible, he will know what to do to make himself feel better and cope with the situation. 

But damn if it still doesn't suck to watch your kid cry.

Just that kind of week

Ten days ago I went to my usual Wednesday playdate. Still at home was dad of the family, bags all packed and ready to head off to a backcountry glacier ski adventure. He does this sort of thing yearly; he and his two friends are extremely experienced, one of them a member of the search and rescue team for this area. While I was standing outside, his two companions arrived and they said goodbye and headed out to a place north of Whistler, where they were flown into the glacier and set off.

When I called this Wednesday, he was home again, because one of his companions -- a man I had greeted and shook hands with mere days before -- had fallen into a crevasse, fallen 30 meters, and died. The dad was the first one there, had to administer CPR on a dear friend who wasn't breathing, before they used their sat phone to call for help and were evacuated by helicopter. 

I can't imagine how they are feeling -- he, watching his friend die before his eyes, she, knowing it could easily have been her husband and the father of her two young children. A wonderful, strong, young life, gone so easily. It was no one I knew, and I can't stop thinking about it.

********

This morning my favourite Aunt emailed. She's no longer married to my uncle; they divorced some 25 years ago. But I was the youngest of my cousins as a child, and she was always extra kind to me. We had lost touch after her divorce, but when my ex left and I went through the same thing, she got back in touch, with strong, encouraging words and support. I wrote back, and we've kept up our correspondence. She's tough as anything, and buys my son weird and wacky presents, and offers love and support and silly chain emails. Her two sons are grown, but she is very keen on female solidarity.

She told me this morning that her breast cancer, beaten back 19 years ago, is back. They caught it early, the nodes are clean, and her older son, an oncologist, has called in a few favours and gotten her the best surgeon he can find. The prognosis is good, but it's cancer, returning, to a woman who is over retirement age. 

I don't see her much, we don't write as much as we used to, but I still greatly value her support and I know that her reaching out to me at that crucial time seven years ago was a very important part of me getting back on my feet. She knew. She knew what I was going through, and it made all the difference in the world. And I can't help but thinking of the hole in my life that will appear if she goes.

********

One of the two older cats we have has suddenly decided, with no apparent provocation, that she cannot share a house with a preschooler and two other cats, and has started peeing outside the box. So far she's kept it to bed covers and dirty laundry, and we've changed bedclothes to stuff that can be washed and have taken out stock in baking soda, gotten a new and another litterbox, tried giving her more attention and making sure the doors to the bedrooms are closed, and there's no sign of it abating. 

We're fairly sure that this isn't an illness problem -- if we are absolutely militant about closing bedroom doors and making sure there is no clothing on the floor, she will use the litterbox. It's not random; it's not everywhere, as one would expect were she ill. It's certain things, every few days, as soon as we let our guard down. It's emotional, we're fairly sure, perhaps -- I suspect -- as a cat who is getting older and perhaps losing her good judgement. 

We're not the type of family to give away (although ... who'd take her?) or put a cat down because she's stressed out, so we're going to try tranquilizers, but ... what else can we do? We have a tiny space and no more room to try extra litterboxes and ensure that all the furniture / beds / clothes  are protected. If this is the way things are going, it seems only a matter of time before she starts on the furniture, and then the only way to protect things perfectly would be to put her in a large cage whenever we are not home. And I have to think that that's not a great life for a cat.

I can put up with a certain amount of extra laundry. And so far, the house doesn't smell of cat pee, because we're able to launder everything she touches. Dear God, I hope the tranquilizers work, because if not we're going to really be in a world of trouble figuring out what to do. How we can live in this tiny space with a preschooler and three cats one of whom pees inappropriately is impossible to tell. I think that it will make things hard for us all.

********

Add to this an office move and a daycare move and a week off work where I have to parent full time which is not something I am used to, and in which I will have no time alone nor any time to sort out my office and there are work deadlines building up and I don't know when I'll be able to get to work to deal with them, or if I do whether I will have a computer to even work on and AIIIIIEEEEEE.

********

And yet? Despite all this? I'm doing ok. I'm tired, and I'm unhappy with some things, and I'm sad. But life is what it is, and things will be how they will be, and we just have to try and roll with it as much as possible. I think if we get the cat sorted out, the rest will fall into place. I can't control the cancer, and work will fall into place, and the new daycare will be painful at first and then settle into a good rhythm. I know a year ago, six months ago, it would have felt like the world was ending.

But I cleaned the kitchen this morning and am doing more (stinky) laundry and I guess we'll just keep on keeping on. 

Surprise!

The daycare asked me, with a coy smile, to bring in a plain white t-shirt that fit me. I'm no fool; I know that Mother's Day is coming up, and I know that they help the children make mother's day gifts. And last night in bed, my suspicions were confirmed. 

"Mommy, you have to be surprised!"

"Do I?"

"Yes, when you come to daycare, you have to be surprised."

"Oh"

"Because I painted on your shirt, your white shirt. And you will be surprised."

Excellent.