Jasper was here for, like, 19 hours before he decided he needed to cut the rope and expluckinglore. I love him so much that it hurts my belly, but he always kept distance. Emotional distance. Jasper slept okay in our bed, no complaints about the pillows or the dry heat blowing up the vent to suck the moisture from his big, fat lips.
But at breakfast he said the eff word to Abby regarding her sunny-side egg.
He called us boring and bourgeois. He made fun of my satisfaction. He was being obnoxious. Mr. Apple and I took him out to the wilds. Specifically Kushog Lake. To some big ice falls.
Jasper was bad company. He was insulting and loud. He smacked his lips and snorted until I sat him down and had a chat.
What do you want? — I pleaded.
For you to just go away with your insipid needy little brain and your low expectations and ever-spreading rump– Jasper sneered — You need to move on from me. Just, just FORGET ME!
Sasha arrived with a suitcase full of delicate outfits my Nanny had sewn. Tennis clothes with bloomers, pajamas with a robe, a bikini and beach towel, a ball gown with real fur stole, and a velvet house gown for Sunday mornings. I was five, and in transition. My mom and I were back in Ontario, leaving a lovely Dane behind to tend to his broken heart and friendly mustache. I had a doll named Bean, and she was my pretend daughter and I was in the process of creating the perfect life for her. Bean was a lumpy baby with a bald head covered in a polyester cap, dirty plastic hands and no feet. Kind of like a square-shaped kid with freckles, eye-flaps, big teeth, and a single mom — in the world of 1980, all of these were equal to Bean.
There was no room for anyone else in the nursery, especially not a high class bit of work like fancy Sasha. Sasha landed with a thump. Sasha was from my Dad’s mom, given like a half-finished lollipop to cover up the gaping hole in the paternal contribution (in my opinion, but I also had a limited grasp on the ways of the heart because I was five years old).
The price Sasha paid for her beauty was high. First off, her wardrobe was immediately pillaged by Beanie. All Sasha was left with was her gingham with the tight cuffs and long arms. Long, willowy arms were the only suitable body type for that garment. Beanie and her compadre Pookie weren’t blessed with those genes so they left it on Sasha and snickered about its colonial neckline and neurotic pleats while they lounged in their tangerine-crate beds.
Sasha couldn’t help being beautiful and swung her corona of ash blonde hair like she was flipping sand off a beach towel. It was sick-making for me, so I gave her a bad case of chicken pox with my Glamour Gran’s high-test coral lipstick. That shit doesn’t come off for, like, more than 30 years. The chicken pox made Sasha look a bit crumbier, but it didn’t erase the inherent poise that comes with high Swiss beauty. So I slapped her around a bit. In front of the others – like a Proto Miss Hannigan. A few times I whipped her in a circle by her leg, because Sasha’s limb articulation made Beanie look like a chump.
There is a small hole in the tip of Sasha’s gorgeous nose. She was poked deep by a pin, the blunt end digging into my thumb and leaving a tiny bruise. Sasha was abused until I grew out of dolls, and still carried the taint of my father’s disregard years later. Sasha was introduced with a mutter and a sigh to my human daughter when she had a passing interest in dolls before moving on to the much safer world of stuffed animals.
My friend was sent her Sasha doll last week, and she sent me a photo of my doll’s doppelganger. I hunted for my Sasha all weekend, uncovering dozens of mouse nests and lost toys and general garbage that had been mislabeled storage until I found her, deep in a trash bag with a pile of Webkinz and baby tools. I apologized and she forgave me.
Now she gets to ride shotgun. Bitch is ballin'.
I am going to knit her a sweater to atone. If I hadn’t abused her with lipstick and pins, she would have been a keen benefactor the tune of $250 USD. Which would have bought Bean a lot of sneakers — or at least a pair of feet to put in sneakers.
Three boxes of Pot ‘o Gold in my pants and there is nothing to do but wait it out. It’s a stand-off between me and my flesh. Science is on the side of my flesh, but this year I’m going to simply carry on and let the fat do what it pleases. It will, regardless of the miles I storm through, or the calories I pretend-not-to-count (420 so far today). Fat and weight are less noticeable when grey hairs starting creeping into the mix and the crinkles at the edges of your eyes hang around long after you’ve stopped smiling.
As we rolled into 2012 I saw relief spill over Oscar’s face as he realized the world was still here. Threats to the end of time are good jokes if you are past the point of no return, but not as funny when you are still growing. Oscar was terrified that we would all vaporize, noticeable only as the clock leaned past midnight and he relaxed into my hug and whispered “See, I told you the world wouldn’t end.” No one tell him about December 21st please.
At the tail end of the holiday Oscar confessed to submitting to the terror of dying and death. I’m the worst person to chat to when it comes to the circle of life. I’m the person who ran out of science class when the teacher drew a diagram of the sun exploding and all life on earth ceasing. I’m the person who stuffed her head in her knapsack to find an eraser breathe when the professor traced the earth’s timeline on the overhead with his finger, noting how insignificant human life was.
Death terrifies me. I refuse to think about it. When my children need comfort, I draw on my theatre experience* to stay myself. I act like a calm and confident mother.
This was a highlight from our trip to Austria. Seeing this full-sized at the Leopold Museum was a definite boon to the business of anxiety. I bought a print to hang in our bathroom in case we forgot we were all going to die.
“I’m just so scared that I will stop being me and be nothing at all,” he said. “Look at everyone who has died. They’re just nothing. I’m going to be nothing. You’re going to be nothing. Abby is going to be nothing.”
The descent into anxiety began and we slid toward shallow breathing and terror together. My family has been halved by old age and nasty illnesses, and I am not at a point in which I can trick myself into believing they are anywhere but dead. They are not in the chickadee that rested on the BB Gun. They are not in the soft aroma of fresh laundry. They aren’t even in my night terrors trying to pull me to the other side for a visit. They are nowhere and nothing and I don’t want to join them. Oscar and I slid deeper, my eyelids shaking with the effort of looking peaceful.
I did an amazing self-arrest and remembered who was in charge.
Smiling serene-ish-ly in a way that was supposed to appear all-knowing and confident, I called on my best imitation of a calm and faith-filled mother. I told him “God always takes care of us, and we are always ourselves,” and then I added for good measure, “And, he always keeps us together with the people we love, forever.” And then I thanked my foresight for buying the best Cute Pig calendar ever and pointed at the centerfold for January and asked if he thought that pig could fit in an actual tea cup. He thought no. I thought yes. We measured the pig and debated until our heart rates slowed down and we could both pretend to be fine with the business of life.
*Annie! 1987, (orphan #5), Brigadoon 1989, (townsperson #12), South Pacific 1990 (girl #4 & sailor #5), looking interested as my children tell me about their dreams every morning for over a decade
Copycatting from Holly…here is a whole post of me, me, me! A retrospective of 2011…
1. What did you do in 2011 that you’d never done before? I was a pallbearer. I wrote an entire newspaper column apology for being myself. I enjoyed exercise.
2. Did you keep your New Year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year? I’m done with resolve.
3. Did anyone close to you give birth? My cousin’s wife! Horray! Breaking the family baby drought after 8 long years.
4. Did anyone close to you die? Oh, just my fucking Dad, and my ever-loving Grandad, that’s all. Plus two of Eric’s friends. Not saying anything to tempt the reaper to really make an impact.
5. What places did you visit? Drove down to North Carolina in a fog of griefy anger, so missed out on that scenery — all images of gorgeous gator swamps and Atlantic vistas carry the taint of shocky death tears. Also went to Tobermory (not for a funeral) and had fun.
6. What would you like to have in 2012 that you lacked in 2011? Boredom.
7. What dates from 2011 will remain etched upon your memory, and why? March 23rd, because my Dad died suddenly. Also February 14, because my husband was a good date.
8. What was your biggest achievement of the year? An A in Research Methods. Which was the hardest mark I’ve ever earned, and I think it qualifies me to analyze any and all trends with vigour and slightly correct results. And I successfully grew out my bangs. Also, a bunch of personal growth achievements which sound like bullshit, and provokes violent slapping hand.
9. What was your biggest failure? Trying to merge parenting with a full grad school course load. We didn’t have as much fun as planned with my Only Summer Off As An Adult Ever. Also the roosters got into my head, and now I’m afraid of the coop.
10. Did you suffer illness or injury? Lurking shadowy night terrors that paralyzed me totally (including the ability to breathe) made me suffer, and anyone in my bed by proxy. After a brief flirtation with paranormal theories, it was determined that the night terrors are just manifestations of stress — not my league of deadies reaching through the veil to chat. Mollified by science and Web MD, the night terrors went away.
11. What was the best thing you bought? An adult bra. As opposed to the junior ones I’ve been jocking from the Walmart teen section. As 40 approaches, it was time to give up useless foundation garments and start making use of the tools of the trade.
12. Whose behaviour merited celebration? Eric. Steadfast, wizard-pant wearing husband who helped me transition into adulthood.
13. Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed? When people drop dead, other people give shocking and appalling performances. I have a list of appalling people, topped with a disgustingly rich widower.
14. Where did most of your money go? Equal parts tuition and Abby’s braces.
15. What did you get really, really excited about? Hiking, cross-country skiing, swimming with goggles and google docs.
16. What song will always remind you of 2011?
17. Compared to this time last year are you happier or sadder? Happier. Thinner or fatter? Same, (likely meaning fatter). Richer or poorer? Poorer…but not for long! I swear it! 18. What do you wish you’d done more of? Swimming underwater with goggles.
19. What do you wish you’d done less of? Moaning and kvetching and losing my temper. And, a few less bags of Doritos would have nailed the thinner in question 17.
20. How did you spend Christmas last year? I can’t remember, but I think it was hiding from Lazlo.
21. Did you fall in love in 2011? Yes. Don’t puke, but yes, with my husband.
22. What was your favourite TV program? Mad Men. Don Draper is a salve.
23. What did you do for your birthday in 2011? Hung out with my family and ate cake.
24. What was the best book you read? 11-22-63 by Stephen King. I forced my sick uncle to read it so I could chat with someone about time travel and JFK. Also, learned something from my aunt: in Canada we would say 22-10-63, which you might not care about, but imagine the fuss if it was called 11-9-01? Canadians do not like flow.
25. What did you want and get? Friends.
26. What did you want and not get? An inheritance.
27. What was your favourite film of this year? Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows 2, which was a point of pride — the only HP since #2 that I stayed awake throughout the entire movie. Plus, it was great to see HWSNBN get the wand.
28. Did you make some new friends this year? Hell no. Just able to keep the ones I already made.
29. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying? A working vacuum and a dog diapering system.
30. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2011? Kurt Cobain with a fat ass.
31. What kept you sane? Solitude in nature.
32. Which celebrity did you fancy the most? Russell Brand. Who I now think is gross, being that he is single and wanton. Ew. Disgusting.
32. What political issue stirred you the most? The Arab Spring. I was supercharged and blew my data allowance updating tweets from Tahrir Square. Also, the war against libraries got me mad in the summer. And, I’m perpetually all WTF about the Harper government.
33. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2011. Grief is the new currency, and people are competitive and showy about how much they have. Also, learned other things: It is quite possible that someone who broke your heart will die without every un-breaking your heart, leaving you in a fugue of unfinished business. It is rather important to bolster yourself from within, and pay close attention and give active love to the people who love you well — you will need to stick a straw in their arms and suck life during the bleak times. Make sure you’ve padded them with lots of kindness first. The lesson is thus, shite fathers are shite regardless of their mortal status, but the loss of a shite father weighs a lot. Get prepared. Plus, I learned that you can swim with contact lenses as long as you have goggles on. And, Mrs. Amos, you certainly can have intercourse in a full bathtub without dying from internal water pressure. Also, learned that my bush camera has a big delay and won’t catch fast animals or Martha peeing on my rug.
Some people (Oscar) display the excitement of the world around them physically. They jump like bouncy balls in school concerts. They wiggle in time to the vibrations caused by our bank account shimmeying deep into a hole for the love of Christmas presents. These people are electrified.
There are so many demands for me to “Look at this Mom!” lately, that I’m completely desensitized to the phrase. The call that used to snap my head like it was on a choke chain now floats like an ethereal ray of sunshine. Luckily, Oscar adapts and still can get my attention if he works hard for it.
Last night he grabbed Eric and I to watch him turn the light on. He did this slowly, first with one hand balanced on the stairs, the other in the air, standing upside down and using his big toe to flick the switch.
Oscar! Turn out the light!!!!
This morning, pre-dawn, after he finished off his pipe-bomb (his name for whatever the hell is hiding under the towel in his bedroom that is a secret for Christmas for Mr. Apple), it was time to eat. Being charged with holiday lunacy, Oscar decided he could not digest without reading a book while eating cereal. So he needed his book. So where was it? No where. Maybe in my sister’s car. Maybe at school. Not at home. But, without a cup of coffee to gird my impatience, I didn’t fucking care.
Reaction to this snub was impressive.
SLAM! went the door to the bathroom. THUMP! went something against the wall. Then a series of thumps, and a slam, and a weird sort of sound like wolves in the walls. And then silence.
Abby and I exhaled and went back to the matter of breakfast coffee and had 68 seconds of calm.
A barefoot and disheveled boy jumped in through our back door, landing in the kitchen after three wild strides — shoes off, hair in a tangle.
-Where did you come from?
-I climbed up the wall and out the bathroom window and down the outside rocks and through the back door.
Our back 40 is like shark water in the summer with hungry bears and brash raccoons looking for a bite of my grief bacon. Plus, clouds of starving mosquitos patrol the bush and carry away large pets and small people to feast like whining vampires. We don’t go down to the bush in the summer.
Now that the snow has come to freeze the clothes off the trees and the animals into hibernation, we are back to our trails. The rink pond needs some stumps and logs dragged out, some widow makers need trimmed down and my trails that I formed last spring using grief as my only fuel, need cleaning. The sound of the chainsaw sings out on weekends like an aria.
I’m back to my animal voyeurism and placed my bush camera deep on a four-leg trail. Last spring, my final motion-sensored picture gave us a peek at the coyotes who patrol the land like dumb bouncers at the roadhouse. Here’s Patrick Swayze:
Other favourites included a shot of a wolverine and a raccoon family. There is also this guy,
who tangled with Lazlo and cost us $411 in quill-removal surgery this week. Jerk. I call him Hector, because I can’t think of a worse name than that.
What does a $411 vet bill look like? Kind of like, SERIOUSLY? One tiny quill stump buried in his giant nose for two or three weeks festering and yanked when the dog was knocked out with powerful drugs then brought back to life by another round of needles and a jar of big antibiotics. So, it looks cute.
Last week in the bush bagged us some big game. Tasty game, that if I were inclined, I would hunt and eat. There was this seasonal partridge in a pear tree tableau brought to us by our local grouse.
And this, the shyest little doe in the ‘hood.
I don’t bait my camera, but this picture made me want to rub the thing down with salt to get a close-up of that nose. Eric wants to lay out old pork roasts like Vlad the Impaler to get a class picture of the coyote pack. Maybe if things get boring mid February.
The Grim Reaper dragged his scythe down the road behind us this week, tiptoeing on his pointy shoes and holding his robe high off the snow. He’s got his eye on someone I love, but she has sharp elbows and a platinum grimace to fight him off. I’m training with throwing stars.
As death lingered on the outskirts, the household whirled in its usual orbit of emotional catastrophes. Snowstorms moved in Thursday to make my drive home a complete mess of terror; made worse because my thighs that were screaming to get swaddled in sweatpants and they had to stay in work pants a few hours longer for Teacher-Student Conference time. Smiling and sneaking looks on the class lists of marks to calculate my parenting success rates, I listened as our kids were assessed against the land of Curriculum. Apparently spelling is the new math. And only one of our kids can spell. As Eric silenced me with his Hungarian Laser Eyeballs, I listened carefully to the plans to force our children to submit to mediocrity…or just do spelling drills. God, I wish I was rich enough to home school — rich enough to hire a team of teachers that included a circus performer, a nuclear scientist, and an Australopithecine.
Meanwhile we navigate emotional growth and serve as a reminder to new parents to start the way you want to proceed. Along with whacking, spanking, pinching or smacking, I decided in 1999 to never use threats and meaningless punishments in my life as a mom (not as a co-worker, though, which means I have a long history with HR for organizing library fight clubs). That was easy in 1999, because I had a cute little Isaac whose worst misdemeanour involved his adorable little incisors and my fleshy lower back. These same rules of parenting continued as he got nastier; I was devoted. I didn’t want to take Isaac’s wooden Thomas if he spit in my face, because what do trains have to do with spitting? Instead I did the whole “I am angry when someone spits in my face and certainly don’t feel like hugging that person.” It was honourable at the time, and it kept my mind untangling tricky logic problems instead of debating the merits of Stuff-n-Such. But now? Years later it is too hard and I want to change to threats and screaming. I’ve changed my mind.
Can I switch?
I was coiffed and ready to run to work, kids tied up in a foggy dose of homemade bread and handfuls of our home-tree apples to wait for a day of amazing fun at the ROM with Nan. Isaac stumbled in front of Oscar in a way that obscured his Lego for a nano-second, but long enough to get him mad. Oscar ordered his big brother to the basement to watch a discarded television with no stations, and Isaac demurred. An exchange began that spun into the depths fast, culminating with the grievous insult served by Isaac to Oscar:
“Did you think that thought with your guinea-pig hair?”
Isaac has become the hair-and-nails inspector of the house, writing violations freely. His hair is clipped like a soldier, and his nails are kept science-ready short. Oscar is on the receiving end of my foray into Internet hair-cutting schematics and cares less about his finger nails than he does for spelling.
I was left telling Isaac that LIKELY something BAD would happen if he made any more remarks about his sister or brother’s hair and nails. With a finger pointing at him in my best imitation of a serious parent. I wanted to take away his iPod and his television time, or charge him money for my time, but my stupid idea of parenting thoughtfully and logically made these things too tricky to apply. Oscar needed to be cajoled out of a locked bathroom and consoled for a full half-hour before I changed out of my snot-and-tear soaked clothing and headed into work.
Indeed. It all would have been better if I could have spent 30 seconds yelling “STOP FIGHTING OR THE TELEVISION COMES WITH ME!!!!”
And, so, here is my mood scarf so far. Pink is happy, beige is normal, grey is crackling, asphalt is murderous, mushroom colour is depressed, and blue is involuntary tears. Holly’s is here. Hers is more about love.
There is a baby about to be born into our extended family and I am ever so excited. Seeing the happy duo of soon-to-be mom and dad last night, I was struck by how long it has been since we crossed the threshold into parenthood. Almost 14 years. The sharp edges of worries about babies and toddlers have worn smooth.
Eric and I were thrown into reflection at the sight of the pair. It’s time-out-of-time when you near the end of that first pregnancy, and to watch loved ones on the cusp is so wonderful. We had our babies so young that the advice came as an extension of being kids in school. Straight from the lecture hall and into 9-month session on names, and spankings, and cereal and sleeping, and spoiling. So much on spoiling. It was the worst part of my pregnancy and newborn days with Isaac — all that external chatter. The worry and stress of bringing a baby into the world weighs heavily on new parents. Books and blogs and shows give answers and plant seeds of new worries in your brain, and show you all the millions of ways you can do things very, very wrong.
Because we were buried with advice, I don’t like giving it. I will say what I’ve learned from birthing and raising a trio of babies who have become people I like.
Trust yourself. Unless you are a total moron (in which case you will most definitely trust yourself, you know-it-all loudmouth) you will know your baby best. Regardless of the information you gather, your baby will do something bizarre and there will be nothing to guide you. For example, if your in-laws occupy the baby’s room to watch your husband change your baby, trust yourself when you think it’s a bad idea. It is.*
Chat with your baby. This is your chance to give your side of the story entirely. They listen better than dogs do, and they’ll chat back, which is nicer than being ignored or back-talked (which comes later without rest, so enjoy these little conversations now).
Ignore people without guilt. My grandad Luke said he thought it was presumptuous to phone someone and expect them to be ready for a conversation. Instead, he preferred to make dates to talk on the phone. That struck me. I think he was giving me permission to ignore my phone if I was busy. Busy can be self-defined, and can change daily. Being busy looking at your baby’s eyelashes as they unstick from the sides and begin to fluff out like a fan is worthy of the definition. So is having a coffee without interuption. Busy is a term I use freely. Sleeping counts as busy.
Eat. Don’t worry about it. Just eat food when it appears in front of your face. In any form. Here I am, starving, contemplating eating Isaac’s little elbow or nursing myself, or waiting for a dorito to come fly across the room into my mouth.
Record. Scribble it down somewhere, because you will forget. Take pictures galore. And have people take your picture. Even if you think it’s a really bad idea, and you think you look like a hag, 14 years from now you will look back and realize that you’d never looked better — that before the life force was slowly drained from you into your heart of hearts, that you had the semblance of an energetic woman. Our house is a repository of scribbled memories. I’ve written down the important things on bits of paper and stuffed them in safe places, finding evidence of a life I’ve lived tucked in old drawers and between the covers of books. It’s not an ideal system, but reading something that I once considered earth-shattering 10 years later is a nice visit from my old self. It’s the closest I get to time travel. I still remember that Oscar called lipstick Lip Lick, but I had totally forgotten the Isaac saying “I’m disappointed in you mom and that is really bad because pointing is wrong.” Thankfully, I had the wherewithall to document the sass.
Don’t rush it.
Now firmly past babies and into adolescent parenting, I don’t see what I was worried for. They all learned how to walk and talk and drink from sippy cups and spell their names, and their pleases and thanks you’s came organically, as if I had never charted and prodded and begged at all. I wish I had slowed down and shut the door to the world, and really savoured meeting my new babies.
*of course, a bizarre and stressful incident is great fodder to laugh at later, which is also a bonus of newborn babyland.
I’m sick on the couch. The amount of self-talk behind calling in sick could rival the extensive ramblings of Dickens. I was going to push through this. Driving home from a day of seriously feverish work, I had the plan in place. NyQuil, followed by DayQuil in double doses, a bit of powder to cover the sheen of fever and some gloss to hide the taint of death on my lips.
But today is Wednesday, and that is my day to enrich the lives of babies, toddlers, and other tiny people with literacy. Typically, bringing literacy to this demographic involves some baby fingers in my mouth, or toddler kisses on my face.Imagining the league of Baby Mamas marching at me with hot pokers after I’d given their sweet angels the flu set me firmly on the call-in-sick mindset.
My coworkers don’t want to get sick. As fun as it is to watch them scurry from me with fingers held up in a cross to ward off the spread of fever, it’s not enough to motivate me from my bed. None of us get sick pay, either, which eliminates a bit of guilt. I’m not going to infect the library staff, leading to massive loss of income, inevitably killing Christmas for half-a-dozen families this year. They can thank me with wint-o-mints later. Plus, the town is saving money while my flu festers. Maybe I’ll get a Good Employee sticker for my choice.
Claiming the mantle of sick, I’ve noticed people want to know how this happened. Let me tell you, I have two distinct hypothesis. First, I work with hundreds of children at the library. Lately, there has been notable amounts of kids with seeping green fluid from all exposed orifices. There is overspray, and I’m sure it hit me a few times. Secondly, last Friday I spent the day in the hospital with my teenager, while he underwent a zillion tests to understand how it came to be that he had endured a week of high fever, cough, and monstrous rash. Mono? Strep? Pneumonia? No! Just a very bad flu. “Flu used to kill a lot of people,” said the doctor. Which makes me feel better as I languish on the couch, unpaid, and struggling to understand experimental research design methodologies…possibly being killed by this flu, but dying away from work so as not to traumatize the crew.
So, happy Wednesday. I’ll be at home if you need me. Taking my temperature every half hour to make sure I still qualify as infectious. And looking at crocheted food. And knitting a sweater. Or a wrap. Or some mittens. And listening to a fantastic lecture. And awaiting death.
We measured the pig and debated until our heart rates slowed down and we could both pretend to be fine with the business of life.
