A work(ing mother) in progress.

To work or not to work? That is the question... for those mothers who have the choice.

These days, it’s difficult for the average family to survive on a single income. As much as I want to believe all you need is love, my empty fridge suggests otherwise. I can’t help but add a few things to the list of necessities – clothes, shelter, food, and a reservoir of homogenized milk.

Should mothers go back to work or stay home and raise their children? Who the hell knows. I know some women who think putting children in daycare is next to abandonment. I do see the absurdity of bringing a child into the world and then handing him or her over to someone else to raise 8-12 hours a day. I also know women who have returned to work after a second or even third child, even though the cost of child care devours their entire paycheck. A reasonable price for sanity, I guess?

Both choices are difficult. Both entail some sort of sacrifice. And both options have their benefits and their bummers. My year of maternity leave opened my sleep-deprived eyes to the fact that full-time motherhood is insanely consuming. When I returned to work, I would regularly proclaim my admiration for mothers who stay home and raise their kids, day in and day out. “You have the tough job,” I’d declare, meaning well. But one day, my friend Kelly put me in my place with one short reply. A mother of three boys including five-year-old twins, she simply said, “It might be hard for you, but it’s not for me.” Holy crap. She was so right. Who am I to pity her? She loves her job and wouldn’t have it any other way. Maybe it’s my shortcomings that make the job tough to me. I no longer say anyone has a tougher job than anyone else. It’s all relative. Every child is different, and no woman is created equal.

I need my paycheck. But even if I didn’t, I’m not sure I’d choose any differently. Maybe I’d work on my own terms. Write a book, or breed puppies, or knit tea cozies (right after I learn how to knit, and figure out what a tea cozy is.) Or maybe I’d miss the high-energy collaboration and water cooler comradery of the working world. Maybe I would be doing exactly what I’m doing now, by choice.

Truth is, I love my job. It’s often fast-paced and high-pressure, but I prefer chaos over boredom. My job is creative, which just so happens to be the kind of soul I was born with, as corny as that sounds. It’s simple logic, really. My job makes me a happier, more complete person, and that makes me a better mother. If I am happy, I teach Max happiness, and I can’t think of a better lesson. Sure, I’m away from him a lot, but at least when I am with him, he gets the best of me.

I respect all mothers for their choice to work or stay at home, but I think it’s important for each of us to be more than a mother. We are individuals, with needs and talents and interests and opinions. Or at least we were before we got impregnated! So for God sake start talking about something besides how cute your kid’s poop face is. Actually, the poop face is pretty cute, so keep talking about that. But most of the other stuff – change it up, sister. Seriously. The stench of the diaper pail has penetrated your brain.

Without a shadow of a doubt, being “Max’s mom” is my number one role in life. But that doesn’t have to define me wholly, no matter what guilt society would have me feel. I am a mom, but I am also a wife, a friend, a teammate, a writer, a unique and complex person who can give so much more than Cheerios to my wide-eyed wonder boy. 

Ironically, he’s the one who makes it possible for me to work in the first place. Every writer needs a muse.

Growing up... BOO.

Halloween ain’t what it used to be. (Neither is Christmas. Or Easter. Or even Fridays.) But it’s not the tradition that has changed; it’s me.

When I was a child, Halloween was full of a spooky kind of magic. The night sky was always black, with streetlights beaming certainty in scattered parts of our quaint seaside town. I grazed from house to house, pillowcase in hand, brimming with excitement. Mom would hide around the corner while Raggedy Ann, or Strawberry Shortcake, or Snow White, knocked on each door and delivered the trio of magic words – Trick or Treat? Once my load became heavy with sugar, it was time to head home to dump my cargo into a heap on the living room floor. Now to blissfully sort. Candy here. Chocolate there. Chips and cheezies over there. And a handful of rare treasures – a small pack of crayons, a pencil, a teeny tiny notebook. What a haul.

Somewhere between childhood and womanhood, between mullet and marvellous mane, Halloween (among other things) lost its luster. Maybe ghouls and goblins suddenly seemed ridiculous, now that I knew the jolly old elf was a hoax and a half. (“Where there is no imagination, there is no horror.” – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.) Maybe I discovered what OD-ing on junk food does to the teeth and the badonkadonk. I don’t remember exactly when things changed or why, but they did. I guess with age comes wisdom, and wisdom comes at the price of fascination.

Don’t get me wrong – I’ve had my adult fun with Halloween. Around age 20, I realized Halloween afforded me the rare, judgment-free opportunity to dress like a total slut. So I seized the day. But hey, at least I was creative! There are far too many slutty cops, slutty nurses, and slutty school girls running around out there. How unoriginal are 20-year-old girls anyway? If you’re going to dress like a bimbo, at least be clever about it. Be a slutty nun, or a slutty sous chef, or a slutty beekeeper, or a slutty Nazi. A few years ago, Andrew and I dressed up as Little Miss Muffet (the semi-slutty version) and the spider – you know, the one who sat down beside her. My arachnid hubby sported an extra “leg”, and his shirt said “What’s in the bowl, b*tch?” On the back of my dress was written, “Sit on my tuffet.” Good times. Good times, indeed.

Maybe motherhood has softened me. Or maybe I’ve just evolved into a different, more self-preserving kind of party girl. No mistake, I live for the absurd. And I can finish off a bottle of red wine before the cork stops rolling. But the parameters of my merrymaking are different now. Last night, for example. In bygone years, I would have attended Mardi Gras on George Street – my old stomping grounds of singlehood. But nope. Not interested. I took my tiny terror to a kids Halloween party instead. I went as primetimes’s fave fangbanger, Sookie Stackhouse. Andrew was Vampire Bill. (If you don’t know these characters, it’s because you don’t watch True Blood and that is unfortunate.) Max? He was decked out as.... wait for it... Satan! Ha. I like to say Satan instead of devil; it gets a rise out of people. But it’s way cuter than it sounds... see?

The chance of getting a sensible photo of lil’ Lucifer in his costume? About a snowball’s in hell. The front of his costume read “HELLUVA KID” and the back was a tribute to the urban insight of Snoop Dogg – “Drop it like it’s HOT.”

Instead of rocking the streets of downtown, I rocked Beelzebub Boy to sleep. I chose to make a dessert (edibility TBD), cuddle with the fur kid, watch Poltergeist (not bad for 1982), reflect on Halloweens of yore, and just breathe. If that makes me a crusty old lady, so be it.

I miss Halloweens of childhood. But the spirit of it all is not entirely lost on me; it is rekindled through my Max. This evening, I look forward to his mystified look as neighbours plop treats into his pumpkin. He’s only 18 months old, but every twinkle of the eye counts for something; molds him into a person-shaped chunk of happiness. This Christmas, I look forward to seeing that twinkle when he feasts his eyes on the multi-coloured lights on every home, when he sees his new wooden train track under the tree, and when he comes face to face with Mr. Kringle himself. The most wonderful lie of all time.

I also hope Max, one day, mourns his childhood, as I do. Because that will mean he had a good one.

The greatest poem ever known

Is one all poets have outgrown:


The poetry, innate, untold,


Of being only four years old.

- Christopher Morley, To a Child

Are we there yet?

Thinking about flying with a toddler? Three words: DON'T DO IT.

I don’t mean that. I mean, in the grand scheme of a two-week vacation, the four-hour flight there and back is just a fart in the pants. You can do it! But be forewarned. And pack at least six kinds of crackers.

Children under the age of two can fly for free. In Canada, at least. So, as new parents, we think Yippee! We’ll take a trip somewhere before the half-pint is two. Give him a ride on a big ol’ jet airliner – for free! Not so fast, opportunistic little mama; think this through. If it’s relaxation you seek, leave the lil’ squirt home. There won’t be much time for kicking your feet up. The kicking (and screaming) will be done by someone else.

The drama begins at the airport. For the love of lemon gin, take your umbrella stroller. A toddler on the loose at the airport? You may as well post an ad on Kijiji: One toddler for the taking. Likes cheese puffs, pooping in pants, and long walks on the beach. You can push the stroller right up to the door of the airplane. Leave it there and board the plane; the stroller is magically waiting for you on the other side. But don’t get too excited; the nightmare occurs in between.

Our August flight to Ontario would have gone much differently had Max been a 9-month-old crawler instead of a 16-month-old Olympic sprinter. With a perfectly immobile baby on my lap, my biggest worry would have been keeping his ears clear and his belly full. I could have flicked on the cartoons, stuck a bottle in his gob, and giddy-up – Toronto, here we come. But Max had learned to motor and had been honing his legwork for the past five months. And now he was bringing those mad skills onboard. No amount of Thomas the Tank Engine was going to stop him from busting a move on that Boeing 737. In fact, Thomas probably just reminded him to go full steam ahead.

For Max, boarding the plane was like walking into a new world of possibilities. His eyes lit up when he saw the endless rows of seats, each containing a different face. I could almost hear his thoughts, spoken in a British Stewie Griffin accent, of course. What is this? A life-size Fisher Price Shake-n-Go Flyer? Must... explore... now. Check out the giant porn stash on that dude. Feast your eyes on that chick’s big dangly earrings! Can I grab them, mommy? Can I? Can I? Oooooh, this little window shade is fun! It’s open, it’s closed, it’s open, it’s closed...

When we took our seat, we were pleasantly surprised to have been assigned the row with extra legroom. Bless your heart, travel agent lady. At least you tried.

I’m no dummy; I came prepared. I packed several NEW dinkies and toys. They worked – for a while. Eventually, Max started tossing everything to the floor. Half the time the toy would wind up under someone else’s seat, so I’d have to retrieve it with my head in a stranger’s crotch. Excuse me, sir, could you move your undercarriage so I can find my son’s train?

I also packed snacks galore. My purse was a vending machine. Raisins, fruit, Cheerios, Goldfish crackers, and a few sugary sweet treats for emergencies. But there were not enough snacks in the world to keep our boisterous boy down. By the time the seatbelt sign was switched off, Max had turned on the Turbo Ginger.

We made the mistake of traveling at night. The flight left at 7pm, so I thought – Perfect. He’ll get on board in his pjs, have a bottle, then go to sleep... and we’ll watch a movie! Dream on, Self. Max was tired, but he fought it with every fiber of his 25-pound being. And how could I blame him? This was an exciting new place. There was no crib, no darkness, no familiar surroundings. It couldn’t possibly be bedtime! Damn, that kid is observant.

He tried to escape our two-seat row, but Andrew’s leg served as a barricade. It’s not safe out there in the aisle!  Some parents walk their kids up and down the aisle to let them blow off steam. But this could easily go awry. People have hot beverages, and there’s always a flight attendant coming or going. Besides, if I gave Max an inch, or 10 feet of aisle, he’d take a mile. One glimpse of the buffet of faces beyond our row and things would get real ugly real fast. Try returning to our seat once he had a gander of that sweet action. Max Murphy Meltdown imminent.

Thankfully, he was content to stay in the one-foot by two-foot playroom in the clouds – i.e. the space between the window and the aisle, minus the space taken up by mine and Andrew’s legs. He flashed greasy grins at the gentleman across the aisle from us. He danced up a storm. He was deliriously tired, lying on the floor for a few seconds as if he was going to go to sleep, then suddenly springing to life and cackling like something possessed. Aha! You thought I was asleep, didn’t you? Suckas! Sometimes he’d lie there for a few extra moments and we’d get our hopes up – could this be the beginning of peace? – when suddenly I’d feel little teeth chomping into my foot. What a case. Andrew and I cracked up. Until we cracked. Three hours into the journey, we were desperately begging the sandman to arrive.

Max slept for the last hour of the journey. Just enough time for Andrew and I to fall asleep and – ding ding – buckle your seatbelts, we’re coming in for a landing.

The return flight was even worse. It was the red-eye; need I say more? This time, we even had a spare seat between us. A blessing? You would think so, wouldn’t you? Mastermind Max only utilized this luxury for his lunacy. He stood up on the seat and threw things over the top at the poor people dozing behind us. A die-cast locomotive to the face leaves a mark.

My recommendation? Fly with your under-two-year-old before he or she is walking. If it’s too late for that, travel with a partner. Don’t fly at night unless you have the patience of job and caffeine injected directly into your veins. If you have money to burn, buy the kid his own seat and attach your carseat to it. (Apparently stapling his sleepers to the seat is a no-no.) If your mini has miraculously developed the faculty of reason – If you sit down and be a good boy, mom will give you a marshmallow – lucky you. Or, if you were blessed with a naturally chill child, congratulations; I was not. Turbo Ginger makes for a frustrating plane ride...

...but a fun life.

Pobody's nerfect.

What’s the first thing you say when you see a newborn baby? “She’s so cute.” “He’s so beautiful.” “She’s got her mommy’s nose.” “Who does he look like, I wonder?” Looks. Beauty. Is it all we ever think about? Do we even hear how ridiculous we sound? 

I confess – when I was preggers, I was afraid my kid was going to be ugly. Of course, my greatest fear was that he would be born with a debilitating disease; I’m not a monster. But my second greatest fear was that he would have the map of Australia on his face, or a head shaped like Stewie’s on The Family Guy, or satellite dish ears. (Free cable would not be consolation.) Everybody wants a beautiful child. It’s only natural, especially given the skin-deep world in which we live.

We want our kids to be lovely – not just because we want to look at them and go awwwwww. We want them to be attractive to spare them the ridicule that comes with not being attractive. Freckle face. Fatso. Dork. Four-eyes. Beanpole. Short stuff. OUCH. We’ll do whatever we can to protect our kids from that pain. Trouble is, helping them conform to the ideals of beauty to dodge the rejection only perpetuates the problem.

Today’s society is obsessed with beauty. I pick up a magazine and flip through the pages of women looking impossibly perfect, and I come to two conclusions. 1 – Wow, those women are flawless. 2 – I’m so glad I have a boy. For some reason, guys can be pudgy, hairy, and imperfect. If they’re charming, funny or smart, they can nonetheless hook the cutest girl in the room. Throw in some musical ability and a trust fund and he’s a hot commodity. Seriously, count the mediocre if not motley rock stars who have married supermodels. Yeah, exactly. The chubby, hairy girl? Yikes. She can play the piano and the harp while doing stand-up comedy and juggling fire; hope she likes black and white because she may as well sign up for the convent now.

Seriously, these supreme beings represent an ideal that 99.9% of us can’t possibly achieve. They are genetically predisposed to thinness. The vast majority of us – no matter how much we exercise and diet and groom – will simply never look like this; it’s just not in our DNA. And yet this unattainable imagery is presented to us – including our impressionable little girls – every single day, on TV, in magazines, on larger than life billboards. We are so immersed in it, we don’t even realize the damage it’s doing. Seriously, even these models can’t achieve the perfection before our eyes! Virtually all of them are airbrushed into oblivion. I work in an artroom; I’ve witnessed the wonders of PhotoShop. Even Cindy Crawford once said, “I wish I looked like Cindy Crawford.” As if her supermodel self were not a lofty enough standard to strive for, they shave a little off her thighs and magically erase the blemishes from her skin. “There, that’s better. Now, little girls, here’s what beautiful looks like. Good luck with that.” And the little girl looks in the mirror and sees a dozen things she wants to change but can’t. Or can she?

I was an ugly child. Buck teeth, freckles, pasty white, rail thin, and red hair sculpted into a mullet. My personal slogan: business in the front, party in the back. It’s not a pretty picture, let me tell you. But thankfully, for most of my childhood, I didn’t know I was ugly; I was just... me. Playing with my Barbie, blissfully oblivious to her universal status as the classic blonde bombshell; the epitome of the perfect female. The women around me were not weight-obsessed. Grandmother chewed on the salt meat bone. Mom never wore a speck of makeup. I had no prissy older sister to idolize, just a brother who kicked my ass at Jeopardy and taught me how to catch. My dad wore mismatched clothes, sometimes on backwards (true story); he was as far away from vanity as humanly possible. Nobody ever told me I was beautiful, and nobody ever told me I was ugly. Maybe the mullet rendered people speechless. Or maybe I was valued for humor, intelligence, and honesty; that’s the long and the short of it.

But inevitably, adolescence happened and opened my eyes to the female ideal that I clearly did not represent. I suddenly became aware of my particular weight issue – I was too skinny! The actresses on television were thin, but they were shapely, womanly, sexy thin. Unlike Blair on The Facts of Life, I was a piece of two by four with fly-bites for boobs, wearing long-johns inside my jeans in a pathetic attempt to look more like an hourglass and less like a human erection. Mom and her friend poked fun at me, cautioning me not to run up the stairs too fast – “You might get two black eyes!” Laugh it up, ladies of large fun bags. To a 10-year-old girl, that stings. And clearly, it sticks to the memory, forever deeming me, at least a little, that insecure little girl.

I turned out okay, stronger and wiser for the experience. But I can see how some girls end up down a bad, bad path. Girls who idolize Britney Spears and her bare midriff, who look up to calorie-counting parental figures who remind them to lay off the cookies – not because cookies are unhealthy, but because they make you fat, and nobody wants a fat girl. What does that do to a young mind? – The mind of a girl who’s just trying to find herself in the first place. She finds herself not good enough, forever pursuing a goal she will never achieve. I hear about girls with anorexia, turned into something they never intended to be, trapped in a house of mirrors – in none of which they see their true selves. How do they escape that skewed perception? How do they reprogram their brains? There is no prescription for perfection. There is no perfection.

I thank God my child is a boy. But I know he’s not entirely exempt from it all, so, just as I would a girl, I shall try my best to teach him what’s truly important – kindness, compassion, courage, integrity – and hope to God it takes, and stays with him when he’s no longer safely tucked under my wing. I can’t put him in a bubble, away from this materialistic world. But I can show him. That true beauty is in the trees, red and brown and gold in autumn’s cool breath. It’s in a perfectly still lake on a windless day. It’s in the symmetry of wooden slabs sloping to the sea, dotted with multi-coloured boats awaiting the next fine day. It’s in the silky smooth coat of a puppy with four paws in the air, relishing a morning belly rub. And it’s inside the people around him – of all shapes and colours and sizes, who are kind and funny and honest and unique, if only we take the time to look beneath the surface.

The lucky ones.

My sperm donor and I spent my 31^st birthday in a prenatal class at the Health Sciences Centre. (The class was twice as long as my labour, ironically.) We were practicing breathing techniques, and one of the exercises required Andrew and I to turn and face one another. I had to breeeeeathe – hee hee hoooooo – and he had to lean toward me and rub my shoulders and such. Without thinking, he said something that permanently etched itself into my memory – the part of my memory where I store reasons to dropkick people in the face, and call them “sperm donor” instead of “loving husband”. His exact words: “This is going to kill my back.”

I think even Max cringed in utero. Oh. My. God. Did he really just say that? My back had been aching for eight months. Peaceful sleep was a distant dream (and you have to sleep to dream so I was royally screwed). And the epic pain I was about to endure any day now was going to make his backache seem like a hangnail. I was petrified about what was about to happen to me, and he was casually complaining about his back. Grrrrrrrrr.

But despite this slip of the tongue, and my earlier posts that might suggest otherwise, I am not bitter – not toward him, (and yes, he is a loving husband, by the way), not toward anyone who is exempt from this ungodly pain. I just like to whine about it; it makes me feel better somehow. It’s kinda like swearing. I don’t really need to curse. Frankly, I’m never really that pissed off. But I just like to throw in a good, solid “DAMN” now and then, to send a little surge of lightning through the ol’ bloodstream. I joke about the nightmarish labour, comparing it to that big, goofy Kool-Aid jug bursting through the brick wall. I tell tales of case room horror, occasionally employing the use of hyperbole to heighten the entertainment value. It did hurt. A LOT. But truth is, I’m over it. Well, almost. And I don’t really blame anyone for the pain (anymore). Apple-eatin’ Eve is my homegirl. The nurse in the case room who told me to hold off on the drugs; she was doing the best an overconfident meathead can do. And men – how can I resent them? I mean, they’re not exactly getting off scot-free. In fact, because they’re largely omitted from this unique life experience, I actually feel kinda bad for them.

Think about it. In every other avenue of life, men and women are equals. (In the Western world, anyways.) We have equal opportunities – at work, at school, at play. We may not be able to pee standing up, but we broads can be the best, the boss, the bomb. Men and women alike, there are no limits to what we can do. The world is our oyster and we both get to shuck it.

But this one thing – carrying a child and giving birth – men simply cannot do. It’s just not possible! They will never know what it feels like to bake a person inside of them like a Butterball turkey. (Nine months... now that’s what you call slow-roasted.) They’ll never know the exhilaration of having that child, just moments after entering the world, latch onto their breast with sheer animal instinct; born to suck. Men have nipples, but why? They’re as useless as tits on a bull. In fact, they are tits on a bull. Men can only sit back and observe the miracle of keeping this spectacular creature alive with nothing more than the nectar of our own bodies. It sounds too impossible to be true. But God, or evolution, or Aphrodite, or Yoda, or someone, made it very possible. For women and women alone. We may be the subspecies to endure the pain, but we are the lucky ones to have the privilege of this first-hand miraculous life experience.

So we must have compassion for men, not resentment. And we must do what we can to include them in this experience. In fact, we must enable them to share in our pain. We must let them rub our feet, our backs, our legs. We must permit them to run warm baths for us, paint our toenails, shave our legs, and run out at 2am to buy ketchup chips, muffins ("I said BLUEBERRY, damn it!"), and mangoes. During labour, we must squeeze their hand so tight, it’s at risk of losing a finger. We must have them fetch the hungry baby from the crib, then put the happy baby back. We must encourage them to spend time with the lil' munchkin, while we go shopping for 200-dollar leather boots. It’s the least we can do to include them in this heaven-sent journey from which they have been so unfairly excluded. In the name of equality, it’s simply the right thing to do.

            

Math

Nine months, what a curious amount of time.
In nine months, a boy I did grow.
Nine months ago today, a dear poppy died.

The boy was just nine months old.

From apple to appetite.

I’m not a religious person, but I’m open to the possibility that anything is possible. I guess you could say I practice WhoFuckinKnowsism. I choose to believe in the Creation story just so I have someone to blame for the heinous experience they call giving birth.

Let’s do a little Biblical recap. 6,000 years ago, Eve ate the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden, even though God specifically told her not to. If it had been a big hunk of Belgian chocolate dangling from that tree, perhaps I could see the error of her ways. But an apple? That’s just weak. Her punishment? God took away the Wii and, to top it off, added this: "I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing... Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you." (Genesis 3:16) Thanks a lot there, Female Numero Uno. And thanks a lot to you too, Almighty One. It wasn’t enough to send her to her room or her treehouse or whatever?

So mamas and gal pals, we must suffer. It’s the legacy we’ve inherited, whether from Eve or from Evolution. (Eve-olution?) For starters, we must menstruate. (The average woman spends about $10,000 on pads and tampons. Bloody hell.) We must carry our offspring for nine months – that’s a good chunk of our lives! – during which time we must endure nausea, swollen ankles, and any number of physical and emotional complications. Then the fun part – we must squeeze a human being into the world through a poorly designed pelvis. This is simply inhumane. Terrorists would list this as “torture technique #7”, meaning six other methods of lesser torture would be utilized first. Inmates at Guantanamo Bay would not be subject to such cruel and unusual punishment. No, this torture is reserved for the true dregs of society – women.

Then comes the breastfeeding. A task that’s draining enough, let alone the nipple pain, the plugged milk ducts, the mastitis and thrush and countless other toe-curling boo-boos of the boobies. “Feed through it,” the lactation nurses tell us. Okay sure, no problem. Got a mukluk I can chew on? A piece of metal? An apple???

I won’t even get into the incontinence, the scar tissue, the hemorrhoids, and the lifelong struggle with body image. And lest we forget the menopause to come and its slew of sucky symptoms that serve to remind us we’re drying up like a desert camel’s scrotum. Yay.

Long story short, womanhood comes with a lot of ouch. AND DON'T EVEN GET ME STARTED on the common perception that men get sexier with age while women just get old. How did men get off so easily (so to speak)? All they have to do in this life is shovel snow, lift heavy boxes, put the windshield wash in the car, and mow the lawn. Is this fair? Hell no. Especially when Adam ate the freakin’ fruit too! How was he punished for his defiance? The Bible says God made him toil for his food from a ground full of thorns and thistles. Whoopdy-freakin-doo. Adam probably just turned around and made his loyal minion do all the work anyway. He definitely made her harvest his twig and berries.

Eve, and us, got a bum rap. (And our bums are not the half of it.) Adam got but a slap on the wrist. He should have gotten a smack on the wiener; a bag tag at the very least. Where’s the justice?