Zone Defence

Hockey season begins.
Baseball as much as come to an end.
My son and my daughter are dreaming of the day they'll be part of a soccer team.

I cringe. I know nothing of athletics. P-man? He's all over it. Lithe and sportsmanlike, in his day. A natural coach. I wonder what they'll do. I hope they do enjoy it. But it won't be for me having a clue. I am at a loss when they hang on the monkey bars.

But arts performance?? I'm all over that. I signed Miss Fancy up for the coolest ballet class ever (community centre!). She has a great teacher she loves who has a beautiful -- huge -- tattoo on her shoulder of Isadora Duncan. (All the kids get stamps on their shoulders now, not their hands, when they're finished. Cute. huh?) It is fun to dance stories, my girl thinks. Yes, ma'm!

I will love the kids experiences in the arts, a lot I think. Dance, theatre, music. YOu? Love and contemplate, it seems.

A year or so ago I finally realized that a fine arts education, sorry to all my arts peeps, is REALLY REALLY REALLY important. When I examine what bugs me about INFLUENCE and my kids growing up I look to defend them. But really the best defence they'll have is a healthy base of the arts. The spine they might gain from creating things, from composing ideas and representations (instead of having them foisted upon them.) I value opportunities for them to play with identity, philosophy, politic, etc etc. Last week my son was 'drawing'. I chided his Dad a little for helping too much. Making logical suggestions for tableaux. Let him do it. If he is demanding of his drawing, if he is reckless in his image, okay. If he erratic or illogical with his imagery. At this SO WHAT! He can have that liberation!! (And, at the age of two -- trust me -- that little guy is looking for the liberal windows he can get out of his parents, big time.)

What about you? Can you tell by now if you will gravitate to arts or sports extra-curricular? Or both? Or neither. Any of it figure for ya?

Rumpelstiltskin

I know there are bloggers who write the most excellent stories; some who compose nifty essays. I love to visit them, often. I never really do that here. Our philosophies differ as much as our talents. I report. I am a standard journal monkey. And what I love about this form is that it is so permissible. It admits regardless of quality, with no necessities of quantities, either.

This is convenient for me, one who very often tells only half a story. Who's to mind, it is only my blog. I am allowed it out without explanation, without completeness.

Half story for the day...

I almost left her there.
My daughter.
Using the terms loosely.

A long day of fun at the fair for May Day. A predictable end coming with some edginess and then the spark. Late for nap. Tired and hungry, keyed up. My son wanted to play with the seat belt she grabbed it. Siblings fought.

Tho' I had two adults, it was my show. I have never cracked the drill sargenting that others might. When the going gets tough and you need to:
Diaper
Change clothes
Wash up with no washroom
Pack van
Say bye bye
Have drink
Find loveys
Get home

Do it all in the minus 45 minutes I just do it. My husband even asks too many questions and 'doesn't get it'. My septagenerian parents stand by. In awe of my anxious prattling narration of the actions for departure. My Dad might put a stroller away. My mother, plays on.

When they fought on the back deck I snatched my daughter out of it and moved her to her seat. And she yelled, "Don't". But the fighting had to be stopped. Her grandmother ran to her, consoling. Announcing that she was "tired of seeing the child bullied". And, then I yelled, "Don't, please go."

I am a bad mother on any day. But today? And, as always, from my mother.

I am agast but I really could have left her there, my daughter. Myself entirely wrapped up in the narrative that she is in fact best off a character from a Shirley Temple movie, sans maman, without family. An individual. Special. Cherished grandchild, instead. Not mine, hers.

I am her daughter. Surely I can see my mother's value(s). To disparage her is to, in some manner, deny myself any esteem.

But she can be such an amazing witch. Steeped in powers I will never understand. Whirling spells that stop me dead. Looking in horror at my own child ready to hand her over. Mom, tell me how it is. It is I am sure so simple.

I have tried, on and off, for these 3+ years to 'do it her way.' But I never do. It is actually quite impossible. I am their mother, not her. It is a psychic tussle. I will feel this pain whenever we share their time. Her burgeoning critiques, the scoffs, her playing favorites and the rapture and worship my kids give freely.

Moths to the flame.

My daughter is my mother's first grandchild and my son her last. I tell myself she is learning to be a grandparent as much as I am learning to be a parent... but today. Today I really was ready to just give her my keys and walk into a forest somewhere where the bad mothers go to drink shooters and read blogs all day.

The Emperor Has No Clothes: A Prequel Bad Parenting Confessional

About a year and a half ago I had ocassion to post a bit about my daughter's emerging gorgeousness. It was a real point of pride.

About a month ago I experienced its counterpoint.

During a night's run-up to bath-time I was charged with the task of negotiating her out of a dress-up get-up . To achieve my desired end I threw in an off-hand comment to move her along and was more than dismayed with the response. What I said was... "You don't need those fancy clothes, you are beautiful just the way you are."

What was the response?

"No. I'm not."

My heart broke in a million pieces right there.

Now if you know me (and of course most of you don't) you would know that I am a frumpy, near-Leninist thinky-type with a ton of 'inner beauty'. I mean this shouldn't bother/intimidate/involve me, right???? But it does. It is about the clothes. It is about the acquisition and the commerce of beauty and the feminine through glittery fabrics and branding. I understand the nuances of influence but still at 3 freaking years old!! she utters this swift demolition of that identity and idealization of her life-loving-dearhearted-growing-nay-blossoming-self so vibrant those posts ago.

I was appalled.
I was sad.

I won't blame Disney. As has been pointed out to do as much would be a cop-out. My point last week (call this the prequel) was to confess my own concern about my daughter for the reasons now described here. But also to register my aghast in this reliance on beauty and material possessions. An aghast coupled with an my recognition of the ages old value of material -- remember I have a not long past work history in museums. The mechanics of material culture should not wholly blindside me.

If I think about the number of reasons "why?" I do believe it is a general issue. It is a paucity of the feminine ideal for my girl. (please note the use of the word my) I truly want to be the best womanly influence on my daughter and to hear her echo the plainness of my identity laid bare my failure in this regard. It cannot be allowed to touch the radiance and potent that is my daughter. No!

Mother-Womanly Confusion Mantra #837
I will not have my children suffer for my inability to hold my shit together.
I will not invest in holding my own shit together to the detriment of the daily needs of my children.

WTF!! I find no solution. But will offer her some consolation in Mommy getting a new dress or two. Mommy getting out of the sweatpants and going somewhere with her self. [sic] Won't be a ball... No won't be a ball necessarily... But might be a start. And, don't get me wrong. I don't think I am 'at fault'... I simply do have to take my part and find a way to move a pretty big issue -- feminine identity -- ahead. Like I say, this Mother-Woman thing is complicated!

Addendum. Dear P-man. Expect a few Visa bills next month beyond normal transaction levels.

Bad Parenting Confessional: The flesh is weak... Blank Verse

Another morning.
Another early morning discipline debate.

Soon nanny will be here
Consistent
Firm
Dispassionate.

I should go.

I am not firm enough.
We are not consistent enough.
My care substandard from its inexpensive love-laden weaknesses.
Whatever I want to tell myself...

****I am definitely a big supporter of diversifying childcare. I have often been first in to boost a childcare choice for a friend; keen to validate their distance making as a plus for wee ones. I tend to put it as 'growing the team' and describe how rejuvenating it can be for a family after the long haul of solo care of infants and growing toddlers. But I must admit today all that hides something FOR ME. I gues I feel that maybe, just maybe, I do recognize I -- alone -- am not enough. Especially as training and discipline goes I abdicate my otherwise iron-willed leadership.

Bad Parenting Confessional: Mini Me

When people meet us and our children they tend to remark on how much the kids are like us. My daughter is really a miniature version of her Dad and my son "looks sooo much" like me. In a myriad of ways we have one of each.

These days the attitudes and actions of our kids (ages 1 and 3) are not always beyond reproach. And we certainly find moments of complex self-reproach when we see our own behaviours reflected back at us, made acutely annoying in their pint-sized and toddler-aged tempo: the back-talking, the know-it-all, even the bossy and the smart Alec. Where once we of the Roadrunner/Bugs Bunny generation were so smug about our smart, smarmy, wry, snark sarcasm, once secure in that identity, now there are moments when I'd give my right arm for a personality transplant.

A month or so ago I thought I would be going to work and saving my children from an overdose of the fallible role model I am. Remember, Burton White is unequivocal when he says that in the second year of life children should NOT be in the exclusive control of their mothers; there are good reasons for that. Now the occupational therapy I had in mind for our fall from graces has evaded me. Now I simply have to try harder. Smarten up instead of smarting off. Sheesh.

For the moments provided by my kids climbing furniture at a dinner party or shoving friends, being late for everything and calling nanny a fool, I am glad to have the words of other parents. I am glad to share reservation and reticence about this youthful impetuousness which is, at times, soundly euphemistic. Thanks to MetroDad for his commiseration with us parent hacks. And, thanks need be cast east for more words on how to forgive any boundaries of cuteness a 3 year old might push when a time comes to dominate the scene. It helps... a lot.

And, in conclusion, here's a vignette of the daughter of p-man as lawyer man. The cardinal rule here, never -- and I mean NEVER -- allow an error in fact to go unpunished. The context is Ms. Fancy's long drawn out refusal to wash her face at bathtime. The exchange concluded as follows:

Daughter: I am not talking to you. I am talking to mommy.
Father: Please, wash your face.
Daughter: I will NOT. I am TOO BUSY!
Father: Wash your face. Or I will do it for you.
Daughter: You are not listening to me!!
Father: So what do you have to say for yourself?
Daughter: I am NOT saying TO MYSELF, Daddy.

Insert sounds of Mo laughing.

Occupational Therapy

My husband is many things. But industrious is not one of them. More counter-productive than productive. Hell for the first birthday present I had to buy him I chose the following.

As I struggled through the morning it was accompanied by the ready chirp of his demands. Slackass ways that make me question eliciting his help in even one hour after I got up with boy-o to clean up that scary scary 5:20 AM diaper.

My husband has never been one to volunteer for work. He's never been one to know what the hell he's doing around here without a script and a compass. As I near my return to work in January I wonder how we will survive. Then it hits me ... I'll be at work! I'll be off the hook for a few hours everyday. I wish I could be the sort of person to let this stuff slide without actual absence but I can't.

Just call me Mrs. Impossible I guess.

The Parent trap

Sometimes I feel that my days as an ardent feminist are behind me. I hope a bit that I remain a feminist even with the edges worn down. I cop to the great mommy stereotype all martyred up and resentful for it and well let's be frank. I just want to kill myself.

It is the real parent trap. I mean I can be fair.. I know there are dad's out there in the same boat. I just can't really speak for them.

A long morning this morning for me. A choir at my lonely ear a lyric chorus... I suck. I suck. I suck. A day where I "secretly" contemplate the relief of returning to work. I cast myself as 'least valuable player' in the family team and a day where a few too many feelings of my own seep out in front of my children.

I did the work from 5:30 this morning but I sure didn't like it those first three hours. I handed out coffee first. I put out all the fresh food req'd and the kids were smiling after two short nights. Where I was tired was the constant stream of instruction that their father seems to need. Get them forks. He's in the Saran wrap again! Every chirp less chirpy and every time less welcome.

A ticking timebomb to dischord. Then it comes... From him: "You're saying I'm just the worst parent, ever." What when did I say that? And, what? You? You mean me, right? It's the nuclear weapon.




It began at 5:30 am with my early rising little guy. A passable night for two nearly over-it little sick kids. A late night for them since Mommy was solo on bedtime duties and ran overtime. I stuck it out myself in the blur for an hour. That's a bit past my husband's alarm clock call to get to work.

I'll get to the coffee and make the breakfast choices. Oh yes and the diaharrea in the diaper; that's my department, too. I work it. Was glad to find that pigeon feature on CNN to help me out at bit. I do all that and only when my son's eagerness for Daddy beckons do I help him upstairs and past the gate coffee cup in hand. Please come down I ask.

We endeavor breakfast for the fussbudgets. I of course will spend my breakfast time on my feet prepping constituent courses. Waffles and applesauce. Don't forget the beverages! And chop up that pineapple they need some fresh fruit. I am working hard. Grin pasted firmly in place but the burrs are there. My dear child drifts in to unroll all the foil and experiment with the metal tear edge on the saran wrap box. Hello, papa-man? What are you doing? ... Checking tennis scores??? You have got to be kidding me! I am asked to 'not be ridiculous'. I am informed that I have a propensity to 'fly off the handle'... It sucks. And blows... Or at least I blow. I am repaid for the sleep-in with this?

Blah-dee.. blah-dee.. you don't understand he crows and then this... "And,



With my apologies for advertising for Saran Wrap.


I'm impossible it seems.

Sleeping Beauty, or Flee the Puma

Our daughter is well known as a good sleeper. There was an odd side-effect to this. I never really enjoyed her sleeping form enough. I always had an odd sense that once she was asleep she was NOT to be disturbed. To do so would somehow irk the sleep gods who had delivered to us this sleep-luck. For the sleep-luck was profound, no real sleep-work in there. Many much finer parents surrounded us who made it quite clear we were defecating equine footwear and we better not screw it up for the sake of parent sanity everywhere.

So once asleep ne'er a check would be.

Then we had our son and I didn't conclude bedtimes anymore. I was paralysed with sleep-wonk not knowing how to end my day without that nearest sleep good night kissy-kiss-kiss with the daughter daddy put to bed. Then I discovered something... I could actually walk into my girl's room when she was sleeping and kiss her. It was ok. She did not wake and demand Blue's Clues videos and Sunchip snacks for hours. No it was just zzz zzz zzz.

My mother had always told me how she would 'check her'... I was mystified. What? Isn't that what the monitor is for? (NB: I used a monitor on volume 4 when my daughter was less than 9 feet from my bed... I wanted to catch any sleep apneas and I guess I thought technology would be my guide in early parenthood. hahahahahahaha.) So I started trying some of this checking stuff. I found that I could even pick her up. Part of me wanted to dance her outside and see just how far this sleeping would go.

But really what is so remarkable about it? I guess what I like about it is that feeling of being back in the cave. I adore that baboon sense of picking up my offspring in the night as the leopards approach and providing safety. That millisecond where I lift her and she curls around me as if we might take flight for hours and she need not wake for it. That she might only hold on tight and fuel me with her trust and her promise. Is this crazy? Does anyone know what I'm talking about? I often think 1. this feels so nice and 2. I should post this on the blog and see if I am crazy?

In other news... Our son has not always been such a good sleeper. I have not often had moments like this with him that were not accompanied by the odd jerky wrestle of a gas-bubble-troubled belly, or the stiff spine of a dirty early hour poop diaper, or the wails of teething, fevers, etc. etc. Due to a conspiracy of housing and temperament he has lead us through our incarnation as accidental co-sleepers and more learned parents generally. He sleeps fine.. I shouldn't mislead just not as freakishly hard as his sister not with the same easy will to do it unaided. I believe this week he has started to point directly to my bed when it comes time to sleep. Of course, being the stalwart and uncompromising sort of parents we are we laugh at this assertion and redraw the boundaries with consistency and verve unless we are really ill with a cold or otherwise driven to wishy-washiness.

I'll add that soon he will wean from any bedtime breasttime. Tonight he distanced himself with a plop in the crib so awake as to supply as wide a range of complaints as one might discern in a 15 month old. I gave him the pillow we usually cuddle with, I also worked it for 55 minutes. I lay on the floor and urged, Nigh-night. I sang and smiled and let him poke at my eyeballs through the crib slats. Ultimately, to end a long day I told him he had to shut it. With this he laid down, and I hung my head. With this he serenely found his focus in the nightlight and drifted off to dreamland? Serves me right. My tears beat against the mattress hard. He'd given me a pretty righteous f' you, Ma. If you say I have to do it myself I'll leave you right out, then.

So many nights lately I have hoped for him to find his independent sleep. Right now I am happy to hear that little waning cold's cough suggesting that maybe, just maybe, I should go check him. Someday I'll have to carry two through the forest to flee the puma? Do you really think I could do that?

There's just an empty space

So what is it that has me thinking my life is as gay as a pack of Phil Collins lyrics?

Well I'll tell you what. After a day of an exhaustion too crushing to leave me able to reassemble the blender and thus walking away from the whole kitchen. And after a weekend of varied parental ruin resplendent with cheap discipline and poor or no napping, 100% nitrate based nutrional solutions... After all that I was given this tonight!



Ah, the Fresco. A robust replacment for the five-year-old Bonjourno I had to retire last month. The beloved oh-so-barely-out of the doghouse p-man took it upon himself to pick this up for me today as a postscript to his workin' man barista -based interlude circa 10:25.

Bless you, husband.

You know for a week or so I have been pretty deep in the 'what am I doing here?' I miss work. I miss the opportunities to kick butt and be heard. I miss my old latte for breakfast, latte for lunch, followed by a sensible dinner routine. I think it was when the Bonjourno gave out that was the straw that broke this camel's back. While I can persist in this imp driven impatience-o-vision universe it is less rosy without the comfort of fuzzy milk.

Honey, you're the only one who really knew me at all.

Post-Modern Mothering: Fruit of the Poisonous Tree

I tread the path between two rows of beating drums. One row says 'don't make my mistakes' and the other smugly chides me for enjoying it at all. It commands instead for me to resist every urge to take joy in what might, in fact, be a 'bland and futile woman-trap.' I hate this stuff. This is what makes parenting suck and blow as we used to say. It is a scratch at the multi-layer power politics of parenthood.

My source for the crud is my mother and my MILs, for I am blessed with two. In addition I can sometimes count on random strangers to offer it up and then there are a handful of the aunties and etc. etc. Men are not immune, only less effective. All the defeatist claptrap. Isn't this hard enough without all that?

This past week I attended a vacation to my MIL's which was steeped in the propaganda. My own little family living and re-living every resented road trip of my husband's childhood. We worked pretty hard to schlep our way the 6 hour drive to partake of all this so I am a bit piqued just now. I despair at times our imperfection and the dismay over our version of family life from such a key family member.

Am I alone?

I have heard it from others, too. Worst for me is the dialogue of mothers and mother-daughters. Sometimes it is called a sad, uneasy, or tense relationship we feel our predecessors had with being mothers. A hesitancy in the giving, or was it more some regrets, of lives interrupted. As a teenager my mother told me that being a mother ran a weak third to her existence as a worker or friend. Being the sensitive over-thinker I am haven't I reflected on that news about 500 times.

A couple weeks back similar patter was put out around here. I believe what I said to my Mom then was "Could you get some new material?" I didn't have anything so pithy for my MIL who concluded our recent visit with the following: "See I told you so. The family vacation is never any vacation for the mother." I mean 'good to see you too' just didn't seem to cut it. So I stood eyes downcast muttering, "Yes." and "Of course you did." Complicit. Co-opted. Thinking about what others have said already.

I feel there is an overwhelming urge on the part of most parents to mentor. To mentor those who come after. I just don't want these mentors. I prefer the energy from the parenting community online we are more collegial and a measured boosterism is inate here. More in keeping with the unconditional support I crave in my parenting.

I think from here on in I will press myself to forget asking my mother how she ever did it. I will instead think to my grandparents experiences and those before. Those at some distance from the parenting machine that characterised my own upbringing. I am sorry that it sucked for my Mom or p-Ma. I just don't really want to hear it anymore.

***

In other news.. Thanks everyone for all the great input on the bibliography. I hope get to work on the annotations shortly.

The Growing Up Right

I am a fan of the smart and poignant book Your Children Will Raise You.

In its chapter The Birth Year relentlessly poetic Louise Erdrich speaks of her daughter...

It is raw power to go forward to lunge, catching at important arms and hands, to take control of the body, tell it what to do, to leave behind the immobility of babyhood. With each step she swells, her breath goes ragged and her eyes darken in a shine of happiness.... It would seem she has everything she could want -- she is fed, she is carried, she is rocked, put to sleep. But no, walking is the thing, the consuming urge to seize control. She has to walk to gain entrance to the world... She will walk to think, not to think, to leave the body, which is often the same as becoming at one with it. She will walk to ward off anger in its many forms. For pleasure, purpose, or to grieve. She'll walk until the world slows down until her brain lets go of everything behind and until her eyes see only the next step. She'll walk until her feet hurt, her muscles tremble, until her eyes are numb with looking. She'll walk until her sense of balance is the one thing left and the rest of world is balanced, too, and eventually, if we do the growing up right, she will walk away from us.

I post this today for baby son walks, you see. Me, I am more silly than poetic about it.


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George is 30!

I have a good friend who told me early: even if you don't have one, you have to admit you have a toy problem.

We have one (but you should see his. Talk about problems!)

We are showing the signs of a house with too many toys. That is to say, in our house, toys are everywhere you can see. They are also in the invisible place, between the joists, and under the foundation. This is the house that toys built.

It wasn't always the case. I was all wicked witch with my daughter and gave her nothing her first Christmas, because I'm like that. I let her play with wax paper, balpeen hammers, and tupperware almost exclusively till we got sucked in on the daycare track and we discovered all the great plastic horrors. The granmpother with the dollar store addiction. Never mind the endless streams of fuzzy germ factories our friends and other relatives have made as certain as death and taxes...

My son turns one next month and I am seriously thinking about not having a party for him for fear of the stuff.

There must be a solution, beyond rejecting any new stuff, which addresses the old. I have heard some good ideas but I am always on the look out for more. I want to teach the kids to let go of their stuff early. I have tried to prime my daughter to give things away but it isn't going too well.

Must I suffer these beasts forever? I write moments after tucking the girl in with George the Giraffe, a stitched and restitched stuffy from 1977, hmmm where did he come from?