LISTEN

I spent yesterday wondering what I can say or do. How do I speak to what's happening in the world right now? While my heart breaks, and my sympathy is limitless, anything I say feels trite- like the boilerplate social media 'thoughts and prayers' that do nothing to help after a school shooting.

Any words I can think to post, while absolutely genuine, seem tainted by the fact that I am a privileged white woman who has no real first hand knowledge of the kind of shit and abuse suffered by an entire race.

I can't. 

By virtue of being born with an easy skin color, my heartbreak and my sympathy are secondhand. My fear for the safety of these mothers' sons will forever be a distant cousin to real, everymorningwhenIwakeup fear. My empathy- my ability to imagine myself in the shoes of another- will always be just that. Imagination.

And my rage- oh- my rage. It's incandescent, nuclear-hot, screaming, smashing, vein-popping rage.

AND I HAVE NEVER SUFFERED.

So is it any surprise that minorities in America (and in Canada- let's not fool ourselves, my maple-sucking friends) are burn-the-motherfucker-down angry? They have spoken for years. Politely at first, and with increasing volume and intensity as time went on. And NO ONE LISTENED.

Now?

Now they scream. We want to scream with them, but we need to refrain.

Because for the love of God, it's time to LISTEN. TO HEAR. To learn how to teach our children to be better than we are. To find out how to improve the world that people with the 'wrong' skin color (I'm being facetious, please don't email me) are forced to share with us.

To come face to face, as I have in recent years, with some incredibly unpleasant aspects of ourselves, and our quiet racism. To really hear, and internalize, what is being said, and despite our deep down desire for it to be NOT ALL WHITE PEOPLE, realize that it REALLY IS ALL WHITE PEOPLE, whether in outright racism, tacit approval, or silent complicity.

To stop spouting, and pontificating, and theorizing, and sympathizing, and to shut up with our second-cousin-twice-removed piousness, and JUST FUCKING LISTEN.

We, the privileged white few who have somehow decided that we are in charge, need to STOP SPEAKING AND LISTEN.

And the words we need to hear, and to then share with our children, are the words of those with first-hand experience.

So click on the link below.

And LISTEN.

https://www.facebook.com/themanacho/videos/272134207491609/

 

How My Mother Ruined My Life (Part 4 Of 7,000,000,000)

Do you remember the family room?

Not the living room, the fun room where Christmas happened, and where the sleeping bags went when you had sleepovers, but the family room.

Neighborhood get-togethers happened there, with the adults all drinking whatever weird drink was in at the time (vodka gimlet, anyone?), and dipping chunks of bread into beer-laced melted cheese. The record player was in there, too, and your parents' vast collection of Air Supply and REO Speedwagon 45's reverberated perfectly, thanks to the acoustic magic of that mildly creepy, spiderey textured ceiling.

The wallpaper was that thick, strange heavy stuff (usually with a hint of gold in it) that you helped your dad hang for your mom's birthday one year. It was the one she'd been eyeballing in those massive sample books during innumerable 'just to compare' outings at the Paint & Paper store. They had saved for ages, as it cost slightly more than a billion dollars a square inch. I had flashbacks well into adulthood about trying to get the stripes to line up evenly- there's a reason 70's kids don't have wallpaper as adults.

Your family birthday parties happened in there- grandmas and grandpas and aunts and uncles gathered there to stare into your soul as you tried to graciously accept that one weird gift. You didn't get to eat your cake in there- the adults did, though, and not once did I ever hear my mom warn THEM not to drop their black forest cake on the carpet. You ate yours in the kitchen, with the rest of the cousins, and it didn't matter if whipped cream got on the walls.

It was the room where the good stuff lived. The grandfather clock stood in the corner, bonging away incessantly till your brain learned to tune it out. The coffee table actually matched the end tables, and was pristine, with not a scratch on it. In a million years, it would never have occurred to you to put a glass down without a coaster (we weren't allowed to bring drinks in there, so I guess it's kind of a moot point), but that didn't stop your mom from dancing on it to the Beatles one night in elementary school. What was WITH the double standard, anyway???

And the furniture. Mom had painstakingly picked hers, agonizing over what shades of rust and ecru matched the eggshell walls best (replaced by a debate over which tones of pink best matched the brass when she redid the room in the 90's), and what fabrics held up better over time.

That was back in the day where stuff was made to last, and was priced accordingly. The family room was 12x18 feet of your parents' vision of the grown ups they wanted to become. It wasn't the motley collection of mismatched family hand me downs, wood paneling and Ikea Boxing Day deals you saw in the basement- it was the room they worked hard to make beautiful, and where some of their most treasured memories took place. It was the first room you saw on entering the house, and it was the face they presented to the world. (I was an idiot back then- I just thought it was a room).

Which leads me to how my mom made me the nut job I am today.

She bought a new loveseat when I was in junior high school. It was gorgeous- solid, overstuffed,  covered in embroidered flowers of varying shades of blue, with dusty rose accents. It was parked in front of the bay window. When the blinds were open, the back of the loveseat was covered in a bath towel to prevent the sun fading the fabric. Not a plastic slipcover (that would have been tacky), but one of the good brown bath towels. It was whisked away when the room was used, but the instant the guests left, the towel was returned to active duty, tirelessly guarding against destructive UV rays.

At that point in our lives, my sister and I were starting to be allowed unsupervised into the family room. We still couldn't take food, drinks, or frivolity in there, but mom had begun to trust us not to explode with sudden insanity, taking an axe to the coffee table, plastering the walls with gore and brain matter, and smashing David Winter Lilliput Lane Cottage sculptures with abandon.

That loveseat.

She allowed us to sit on it, but did so grudgingly. She knew NOT allowing us to sit on the thing was unreasonable, and she adored us, but you could see her visibly tense up if you sat sideways on it, imagining what your awkward posture was doing to the structure. She REALLY didn't want your friends sitting on it, because they didn't know the rules- best if you just didn't entertain in there at all. But my sister and I were so thrilled by the prospect of actually being allowed to use the furniture that we refused to see the inherent parlour-ness of the room, and insisted on trying to enjoy it.

And every time we sat down on that gorgeous loveseat, within 30 seconds of landing, you felt your head being gently lifted off the high backrest, and before it was returned to its former position, a tea towel was lovingly laid behind your neck, lest your scalp oils eat away at the 11,000,000 thread count fabric.

TO THIS DAY, I don't rest my head on furniture (unless I'm napping on the couch). The instant it touches the fabric, my head reflexively bounces back into a 90 degree sitting position. It even happens in the van- it stresses me out to take advantage of the head rest- it feels weird, and I cringe forward a bit so I won't make contact. One day, I will develop a hump.

I'm naming it 'Mom'.

The loveseat, which grandkids are now allowed to sully with shoes.

This picture is intended for wallpaper-viewing purposes only.
Any other things you see going on, just ignore.

   

Hi, Baby!

We've all seen them. We all know them. Some of us have given birth to them.

The Hi Baby.

I'm not sure where we heard or saw it, but years ago, Jason and I heard the expression, and it's so right, so perfect, that it has since become a family code phrase (insert disclaimer re: intellectual property and credit for whatever comedian coined it here).

Very few babies are born adorable. Most, in fact, are downright funny looking. Their heads are misshapen, they have strange bruises and lesions and skin afflictions, and in general, wouldn't pass muster in Hollywood. And some? Some are like a bag of snakes.

These are the Hi Babies.

Please, please, don't get all upset and offended and write me and tell me I'm a bad person who hates children... I don't. I'm referring to natural childhood grostequery, not genuine physical deformities, illnesses, or conditions visible to the naked eye. (Incidentally, when meeting THIS baby, arrive with dinner, a bottle (or 3) of wine, and lots of time to congratulate/listen/babysit/do laundry/rail at the universe/get the hell out/hug. If you can't arrive with all that, be a better person).

ANYWAY. This is how nature works- it's all checks and balances. At some point in your life, you will not be the best looking kid in your class. But that's ok. Maybe you're gorgeous in high school, or find the cure for cancer in your 40s, or are a musical prodigy. Where one door is shut (sometimes with unnecessarily excessive force directly in the facial area), another opens. I'm speaking from experience. I myself have both, at varying times, been, and spawned, a Hi Baby.

Usually, it's temporary. We fill out with baby fat, skulls realign, cheeks get all pinchable, and we learn how to wrap every adult in a 15 foot radius around our little fingers. Most Hi Babies are only Hi Babies for a very short period of time, but be warned, oh, childless masses, if you have to introduce your kid to the world at large in the middle of it, you'll hear it.

Hi babies are the ones who are SO unfortunate looking that rather than exclaim "What gorgeous eyes!" "What a stunning smile!" "What gorgeous skin!" the ONLY response you can come up with upon gazing upon them for the first time is...

(Fortissimo, high C# Major)

"HIIIII, baby!!!"

Years ago, we were at a company Christmas party, and as myself, Jason, Isaiah and Liz left our hotel room with 17 day old Squid (the party was at the Banff Springs- not even childbirth could keep me from going), we ran into an engineer I worked with, accompanied by his wife and 1- month old youngest daughter.

This guy, although pompous and cocky to the extreme, was gorgeous. He was one of those people you look at just cause they're pretty- like a sunset, or a dark haired, perfectly sculpted rainbow. His wife (as well as being infinitely more pleasant), was also beautiful. That's why it was such a shock when we admired each other's new babies, and discovered to our dismay that they had given birth to the Toxic Avenger.

I smiled at the infant, and without even thinking, chirped,

"HIIIII, baby!!!"

And Jason, at the same time, said the only thing worse.

"What a PRETTY dress!"

We realized it the minute it left our mouths, and for the following 3 minute conversation, shaking with barely restrained laughter, not a soul in my family could look at any of the others. We finally turned away, with goodbyes and commitments to chat later, walked quietly back into our suite, and proceeded to dissolve into puddles of silent hysteria. Not at the baby, you understand, but at the realisation that it's an actual, proven phenomenon.

You can laugh. It's ok. Don't act like you're better than this. It's a spontaneous reflex, I swear to God. No one wants to be the one to tell someone that the tiny miracle sprung forth from their loins, this blessing from God, the answer to all their prayers, ****THEIR CHILD**** actually makes a pretty good looking monkey. It's a protective reflex, like when Jason can't hear me when I ask if the pants make me look fat. It's better for all of us, trust me.

And if it makes you feel any better, I will pay for it. When I finally get to my special reserved chair in hell, with my very own engraved nameplate, I'm reasonably sure the face Beezelbub will return to me for the rest of eternity is this one:






My mother loved it, I suppose.

Advice from a Couple That Clearly Knows What They're Doing

(Disclaimer: This is my first blog in about a year, and I hadn't written regularly for about a year before that. For a while, the world didn't feel right to me, and the funny fell out of life. So I stopped. (In hindsight, not writing probably made it worse). Life is easier now, and the humour has come back- enough so that I have enough ideas to get me started again. But like I said, this is the first one in a while, so don't set your expectations too high.)

(PS- I missed you.)

Jason and I have been married for 21 years. Although not overly impressive in itself, when you factor in a surprise baby born to teenage McDonald's employees, and the resulting years of abject poverty, I feel like a high five is appropriate. When you factor in the FURTHER realization that I have spent my entire 42 years never having been wrong, and have had to coach poor, misguided, constantly wrong Jason every step of the way, high fives give way to actual gold plated statuettes. 

(I'M KIDDING. I am wrong quite often. It happened as recently as 2014- I know, cause I wrote it down on the calendar.)

I'm hoping one day, our great-grandchildren will come to us before their weddings and ask (in a somewhat reverential tone), how we did it- how to make it all work.

And I'm hoping one day, we'll have an answer for them. There's no one thing I can point to and say "This. This is what did it. Do the 'this', and you will be happily married till the end of your days", but I have some ideas. They may need refinement before I share them with the Gen XYZ 2.0'ers, though. 

1) Be too poor to split up.

I'm dead serious. 18 and 19 year olds with babies living in shitty apartments on fast food wages ARE NOT DESTINED FOR LONG TERM SUCCESS. We both know it and fully admit it- had we not had Isaiah, there is absolutely no way either of us would have bothered to put in the kind of effort required to sustain a marriage. After the very first post-50-cent-draft-night-at-Dooie-Steven's argument, one or the other one of us would have packed up our mix tapes and gold chains and blown the hell out of that pop stand.

As a long-term strategy, I realise it's not super effective, especially given that the goal of most marriages is to make it OUT of the poverty-stricken first few years, but if you time it right, by the time you start being able to afford 2 residences, you'll have learned to like each other again. If not, hopefully by then you'll have had kids, and and the cost of child support will delay the process another few years.

Seriously, though- marriage is WORK. A lot of it. Marrying my husband has been the best and smartest thing I've done in life, but it's also the hardest job I've ever had.

2) LOWER YOUR EXPECTATIONS. 

I get that there needs to be that first spark, and that physical attraction is what human beings are primed to see first, but sweet Mother of Pearl- if you can't adjust your perspective, STAY OFF INSTAGRAM, or it will lead to divorce. Anyone going into wedded bliss expecting roses and chocolate strawberries and Chris de Burgh in the background EVERY SINGLE DAY is going to be deeply disappointed. Stomach flu happens. People get fat. You're working third shift. One night, his toenail will gouge a hole in your calf, waking you from a dead sleep. You will get diarrhea. He will grow a creepy moustache. And when all of that happens, you sure as hell need to have something in common besides the physical- current events only carry you so far.

3) Learn from history.

Jason and I learned a great deal from our parent's marriages. His parents were supremely happy together till his dad passed away when he was 11, and he has learned to value the time he gets. My parent's marriage taught me how I expect to be treated by the men in my life, and what standards I want to hold them to. We try not to repeat yesterday's screw ups, and are constantly working towards something better. We know now that I have trouble keeping every thought to myself, regardless of how inappropriate they are, and that Jason internalises his feelings to the point where it can be hard to tell he has any. We meet in the middle now (usually accompanied by a cartoonish smashing noise, and lots of yelling).

4) Marry your best friend.

I know it's super cheesy, but by the time you marry someone, shouldn't they be the person you would most like to spend time with? If they're not that person- MARRY THE OTHER ONE. Why not spend your emotional energy on the one you value the most?

We were best friends before we started dating. You could generally find us at Shappay's right after school, drinking cups of cheap coffee and sharing a plate of onion rings and ketchup. We only ever played 3 or 4 songs on the juke box, and those songs are more 'our songs' than the first dance at our wedding will ever be. Eric Clapton's 'Tears in Heaven', Madonna's 'This Used To Be My Playground', and Sophie B. Hawkins' 'Damn, I Wish I was Your Lover' (in retrospect, Jason always picked that one, and I'm only just now realising how truly obtuse I was back then). I pierced his ear (badly). He did my math homework (with far greater success than with which I pierced his ear). We hung out at the smoke doors. We gabbed on the phone for hours. So when eventually we started dating, the progression was so natural we didn't really even notice the change. I'm not saying you have to have that kind of history with everyone, but it's nice to have someone who GETS YOU. When I say 'Goodnight, Dick', I don't have to explain that I'm not suggesting sexy time, but rather that I'm referring to the Smothers brothers. When he says 'Hi, baby', I know exactly what he thinks of the infant in front of him. That's the kind of stuff that only comes with time and (ad nauseum) repetition and a mutual sense of humour.

5) Watch out for the deal breakers.

I'm not talking about the shit that can happen AFTER marriage, like cheating or alcoholism, or abuse- those should go without saying. I'm referring to the stuff beforehand. I joke about how Jason only ever wanted 1 kid, but it's one of those things I say cause it's funny, not because it's true. Half our offspring started as a twinkle in HIS eye, when I thought I was good and done. If someone doesn't want kids before marriage, you're not changing them afterwards. It took me five years to get rid of Jason's favourite pair of JEANS- I don't have another 30 to spend questioning whether or not to populate the planet. Why create obstacles when so many already exist?

Religion is another one. Unless you can find a way to mesh your ideas of spirituality, it's gonna be a factor later. Jason and I are both Christian, majoring in 'I've had enough organised religion for now, thanks' and minoring in 'Let the kids choose for themselves when they get older so we don't have to go to church and as a bonus, we look super tolerant.' If you have to fight over a church wedding vs. a JP, you're already on shaky footing. Figure out the math BEFORE you have the argument about giving up Matzoh balls for Lent, that's all I'm saying.

6) Chill. The Hell. Out.

I was serious about the Instagram thing. If you're too worried about appearances, and how everyone else is perceiving your marriage, you are setting yourself up for failure. Just be ridiculous. We spent our (very generous gift of a) honeymoon in Disneyland, doing what WE wanted. Neither of us were interested in a romantic beach getaway, or a couples massage or the lights in Paris at night. We wanted churros and $32 frozen bananas. We camp together ALL THE TIME, cause it's when we're at our most relaxed (usually). We still hang out at the mall and people watch, and we genuinely enjoy doing things together. We tease each other, and make fun of each other (probably too often), and subsequently bicker, and that's fine. 5 years ago, we stopped fighting about who would do it and just agreed to pay someone to mow the lawn. I (tried) to stop correcting his grammar. He's stopped keeping track of who got to sleep in (it was me).

Granted, all of this gets easier and easier as the kids get older and there's less exhaustion and stress and fewer sleepless nights. I wish we could have learned all of this 21 years ago when our big kids could have learned it from us, but I'm content that we ARE learning. We're getting better at marriage every year. We don't make the same  mistakes we made 10 years ago- we make new and different ones. We've stopped wasting time arguing about the little things so we can save it for the actual big things. We've learned that in an emergency, our immediate reaction is to work together, rather than let it divide us, and we've learned that although our methods may be different, our end goals are exactly the same. We have spent the last 21 years growing into our marriage, and every passing year reinforces the fact that we made the right choice.

So I'm hoping one day, that when we sit before our (awed and adoring and a little humbled in the presence of matrimonial greatness) great-grandchildren and they ask us that question, we will know to tell them all these things.

(Or at the very least, have had the lucidity to understand what they're saying, and the foresight to have had the answer printed on a colour pamphlet.)

Happy 21, babe. I love you.

Inappropriate Reactions

I cannot stop laughing.

I know I shouldn't.

I know it's not the most appropriate reaction.

But it's this or start day drinking, and I reserve that for Christmas holidays and camping.

We got the littles a hamster for Christmas 2014, and everyone has been mildly surprised that he's stuck around this long. That is no longer an issue. This morning, I sent Squid to feed him, and he discovered that Spot no longer requires earthly sustenance. Manna from pet heaven will do just fine.

He managed to keep it together quite well, which I was pretty impressed by- Squiddy wears his heart on his sleeve, and his emotions are always just waiting to bubble to the surface. He did so beautifully, in fact, that I forgot he was in the room.

I didn't want to touch the thing.I'm sure it died of old age, but since I am not a veterinarian, I can't be 100% certain he didn't die of Ebola, or Norwalk Virus, or Other-People's-Foot-And-Butt-Germ Disease. I grabbed a few Safeway bags, doubled them up, removed the top half of the cage, and dumped the contents of the bottom half (one of which was a hamster that looked as though it was pretty surprised to die- legs all akimbo, eyes way too wide open and all stare-ey) into the bag.

Thump.

And I heard Squid gasp.

Cue the hysteria.

Once she noticed that Squid was crying, Eva (who never misses an opportunity for a REALLY GOOD MELTDOWN) immediately joined in, using her best high pitched sob. (I didn't mind so much- it's gratifying sometimes to see her imitate human emotions.) "I just loved having something to LOOOOOOOOVE" sobbed Squid, in a (totally successful) bid to get me to go get another rodent.

That's the exact moment (the same one as the one where we're supposed to be walking out the door with the dayhome kids to leave for the school, by the way) that Isaiah chose to call me to inform me that there was something wrong with his truck and he was stranded in Airdrie. I won't tell you here what my response was, but the end result was that he chose to try to find someone in Airdrie that would be willing to help him and would call me back to let me know when he was on his way.

I gave up on the idea of walking, piled my kids and dayhome kids into the minivan, ran my own two (slightly less hysterical) children to school, hit PetSmart with the dayhomies to buy a replacement animal (they have great taste- we now own the least offensive of the four available gerbils), and headed back home.

On the way there, I called Jason to update him- unwisely ending the conversation with the phrase "My day can only go up from here!!!!!!!!" (Those who know me well can hear the Apocalypse Now soundtrack starting up in the background. It's basically the kiss of death.)

When I got back home, Isaiah was back, and in the process of replacing the battery and clamps in the Durango in my parking spot, so I handed him the new rat and accessories, and backed out onto the street to park my van. And heard *that* noise.

I hit.

My husband's new truck.

With my new van.

#$%@#*#@*!@#.

Isaiah came flying over, and stared at me like I'd lost my everlovin' mind. I was starting to giggle, and he looks at the (not entirely insubstantial) dents in both vehicles and says "Dad's not going to be amused."

Nope. He's not. I figured if I could call him and explain it in a way that would make him see the irony in the situation, he'd be way less irritated, so when he picked up the phone, I used my super peppy voice.

Me: "Hey! There's two ways I can start this conversation! I can either tell you about the accident I just had with the van, or I can tell you who was the very first person to hit your truck!"

Jason: "........."

Me: (Muffles giggles.) "You there?"

Jason: "What does that mean? Is everyone ok?"

Me: (Begins to lose shit entirely and starts to chortle.) "Yep, but I just backed my van into your truck."

Jason: "Which truck?"

Me: (Starting to do wheezy laugh, tears begin to roll down my face.) "The new truck."

Jason: "MY new truck? Is this a joke?"

Me: (No longer able to hold myself upright without the aid of the counter.) "Nope, but seriously, my day can only go up from here!"

Jason: "^#%$&*()!@*^$%#$&^!)__!@&$&^&$!)(*_)@&$% &^&()$ )@&^@$&%& $!_( * @^!$&)@ &*!%$*)  &!^_(%*&_(! @&(%^*)&!@ %$&*()!@*^$%#$&^!)__!@&$&^&$!)(*_)@&$% &^&()$ )@&^@$&%& $!_( * @^!$&)@ &*!%$*)  &!^_(%*&_(! @&(%^*)&!@%$&*()!@*^$%#$&^!)__!@&$&^&$!)(*_)@&$% &^&()$ )@&^@$&%& $!_( * @^!$&)@ &*!%$*)  &!^_(%*&_(! @&(%^*)&!@^" (Censored) 

That man has no sense of humour. Clearly, the kids get theirs from me.



I'm pretty sure he's laughing on the inside.

Less Dead Spot

My Friend

(Written at the request of said friend.....)

I have an amazing, brave, beautiful friend who was diagnosed with alopecia in 1988. For those not in the know, alopecia is an autoimmune disease in which your immune system mistakenly starts to attack your hair follicles.

She was originally diagnosed with Alopecia Areata in 1988, in which her hair was falling out in patches or circles, but a few years later, developed Alopecia Totalis and lost all the hair on her head. In the last 8 years, it has progressed to Alopecia Universalis, which means that her entire body is affected, down to the last eyelash or arm hair.

There is so, so much more to her than her hair, of course- her wicked sense of humor, generous spirit, and incredible smile are so powerful that were she to take off the wig, you'd barely bat an eye.

But women, from childhood onwards, see our hair as our crowning glory; central to our look, our style, even our identity. Alopecia is an incredibly devastating disease, and it can be so hard to come to terms with it.

Henna Heals helps women do just that. It started as a small organization in Toronto, and has since become a worldwide network of artists creating henna crowns to help women cope with hair loss due to alopecia, cancer treatment, and other diseases.

My friend got her crown yesterday. When I saw the picture, my heart sang. The incredible art, the love that went into it, and the smile on her face brought me to tears.

Not everyone knows she has alopecia- she's never been 100% comfortable discussing it, and there is only a select group of people who have seen her without her hair. Part of her also worries about embarrassing anyone by 'going public'. But with the help of henna artist Reeshma Premji, and armed with the knowledge that today's world is about embracing our differences and doing what is best for you without being judged, she's doing it now.

She was beautiful last week.

She was lovely yesterday. 

But today, Sherry is exquisite.

And I am so, so proud of her.

Lessons Learned

In the whole grand scheme of things, we are super lucky.

I have a good friend with a daughter with serious medical issues, not the LEAST of which is epilepsy, and every time I see Lori, I am amazed at the grace and courage with which she handles herself. My admiration grows even deeper when viewed in light of my total inability to get my shit together.

In comparison, Squid's epilepsy, which isn't even all that bad as far as epilepsy goes, has had me in an endless loop of react-cope-wait-react-cope-wait for the last 6 months- one that I'm only now beginning to claw my way out of- and any thought of being some sort of stellar, well-put-together mom is long gone.

At heart, I'm a lazy parent. I always have been. Any small issues with our kids were easily handled and generally no worse than a broken bone, missing iPhone or school suspension. I am a PRO at that stuff, and clearly, the success went to my head.

I'm not trying to be self-effacing here- I frigging hate false modesty. I am fully aware that the two older children we have raised are phenomenal people, and that we had a major hand in why they are becoming successful adults, and I am totally taking credit for it. I also understand that if we stick with the same formula, our younger two should be equally awesome someday. (Or not. Either way, I'm already at a 50% success rate, so I've pretty much given up trying.) I'm saying I was lazy because I never had to be anything more than that.

I guess what I'm trying to say is I've learned.

I've learned I am an excellent crisis parent. I held my shit together quite beautifully for all of December and January, and kept (most of) my terrified tears to within a 3:00- 3:15 a.m. time slot. I made jokes with Squid about testing for marshmallows in his brain, I answered some serious questions from him about what if it was a tumor, and should he be scared, and was he going to die, and I came out of all of these conversations with a child who felt better than he did going into it. I organized doctor's appointments, scheduled child care for my own kids and relief care for my dayhome kids, and found the Children's Hospital every time without getting lost.

(Most of the time.)

(Sometimes.)

(Occasionally.)

(That's bullshit. I have to call Jason or Mom to give me directions from Sarcee Trail onwards. Every single time. I just don't get it.)

I learned that once the sprint is done, I suck at the endurance stuff. I don't hold up well to sustained stress. The cracks start showing pretty quickly.

I learned that at heart, I'm a total hippie. I think the human body will tell you what it needs in most cases, and that doctors should be a last resort. I am extremely drug-shy, and have always preferred more natural methods. I think today's kids are over-diagnosed, over-medicated, over-exposed to antibiotics, and, as a result, more susceptible to some really ugly diseases. (Yes, my kids are vaccinated. I'm not an idiot. But I researched the shit out of it, REALLY hoping for a valid reason to decide against it. The problem is, there isn't one.) I thought that seemingly healthy people who go to the doctor (barring cancer, childbirth, or sudden, violent disembowelment) were, well, pussies.

I learned that I had the luxury of thinking this only because my other kids are as healthy as horses.

I learned to change my attitude.

I learned that I am great with facts, and not so much so with gray areas. I was warned that there could be some behavioural side effects with this medication, but if we could push through it for the first few weeks, it would improve after about a month. So I shook it off when Squid threw a mop at Jason or kicked the recycling bin across the kitchen and dining room, or when he was so strung out he was VIBRATING. And the behavioural issues did start to level off after a month or so. Maybe he wasn't as cuddly or smiley or friendly as he was before, but I guess that's to be expected with a pill whose SOLE PURPOSE is to fuck with the way your brain works. The drugs were helping, and I can do anything for onemonththirtydays720hoursI'mcounting if it makes him better. On day 31, I fell apart.

And I learned that with a chronic disorder, there is no 'making him better' and there is no end date. There's just new and changing circumstances and new ways to cope with them. And I need to remember that. Because after a while, he started having these things they call breakthrough seizures, and they upped his dosage, and the bottom fell out. 

Google the phrase 'Keppra rage' if you get a chance. This particular side effect is so bad it has its own NAME.

For a week, the higher dosage worked wonders. The seizures stopped and we didn't see any change behaviourally. He was still a different kid from 2 months prior, but we were getting to know him and starting to learn how to deal with him and what we needed to watch for, and there was a new normal happening. Then overnight, something flipped. The hyperactivity was beyond anything I'd ever seen before. He missed a full 18 days of school in the next 2 months, simply because I physically could not get him there. His newly-found ability to focus disintegrated. Each time he overreacted to something, he was utterly incapable of shutting it off, and his rage escalated to unreal heights. He KNEW he was out of control, and was basically a bystander for the entire show. Then after the blowouts, he became so upset at his behaviour he'd say awful, awful things- about hating himself, and how our family should hate him too, and that he wished he was dead. We were doing everything we could to derail any sort of display of emotion before it spiralled out of control, and were living in terror that his lack of judgement would cause him either to hurt himself unintentionally ("I bet you I can beat that car across the road."), or intentionally (we won't go there, but we imagined it, in vivid, living colour).

I learned that my pride and my persistence mean that I usually wait too long to admit defeat. And I learned that since I am the primary caregiver, Jason defers to me on a lot of decisions, and sometimes this not a good thing. We were literally surviving day to day, trying to give the medication a chance to work, and some time for the side effects to wear off, and it wasn't until a blowout on an outing that left not only myself, a mom of 4 and seasoned dayhome provider, but also two OTHER moms and dayhome providers shaken and in tears, that I was shocked to realize how LONG we'd been trying to push through it, hoping to strike a happy balance between seizures and emotional uproar and new (and possibly worse) medication. I realized that I'd gone from a normal, relatively strict parent to someone who was now picking her battles to the point of ridiculousness. We had gone from 'don't EVER hit your mom' to 'it depends on how hard and if he's just flailing or actually throwing a punch'.

I learned what people mean when they use the phrase 'quality of life'. 

I learned that the neurologist knows what she's doing, and that she should be my first resource, not my last.

I learned that I rely a lot on 'fake it till you make it', and just because I try to minimize problems does not mean the problem doesn't exist. This medication IS scary. The side effects AREN'T great. It COULD damage his liver. He COULD get an infection because these meds DO lower your white blood cell count. Heart murmurs CAN cause problems in epileptics. Sticking my head in the sand won't make it go away. But being cautiously aware of the risks will mitigate them. Waffling on the 'have to wear a life jacket every time we're in the water lest you have a seizure and drown' issue, and making different rules depending on the depth of the water or his proximity to me or whether I can give him my undivided attention isn't going to make 'maybe you'll be the only one of your friends who can't get their driver's licence' any easier. Neither issue is negotiable, and both will get him just as dead if things go sideways. Giving in so he won't feel embarrassed in front of his friends won't make one bit of difference. I was so worried about him being scared or ashamed or developing poor-me syndrome or the epilepsy becoming an excuse that I forgot that it IS an actual, real problem, and he DOES have a right to be nervous or scared or pissed off. And I learned that maybe I need to relax a bit and just let him have these feelings, and then maybe they won't build until he explodes.

So I learned to backtrack.  And we started again at 'the universe is against me' and are working forward to 'this is an inconvenience, but it doesn't define me' without skipping any steps this time around.

I learned that Pavlov's dogs have NOTHING on Jason and I. The alarms on our phones have been set for every 12 hours since January 14th, so we can give Squid his pills, and if we shut them off when we are distracted, or are camping and our phones die, we occasionally forget his medication till 4 or so hours later, at which point it's too late to take it, anyway. We learned to scrap the alarm system altogether. And we've learned to double check each other incessantly.

We've learned to start every phone call to each other with the words "Everything is ok", just because sometimes it's not.

I learned that my family is always here, whether it be 'Facebook and email across the country' here, or 'we live 10 blocks away' here. I learned that with the right motivation, my mom runs a damn good dayhome. I learned that my sister isn't a total tool and actually has some very good ideas and suggestions... sometimes. ;)

I learned that my chosen family, saints that they are, will watch me very carefully as I have a nervous breakdown, but won't suggest that that's what's happening till I'm ready to admit it myself (or till I send a hysterical text or break down sobbing in their kitchens). I learned that they know us well enough that our get well soon card was constructed not of cardstock and platitudes, but of bottles of our favorite booze and comfy clothing. 

I learned my close friends and dayhome mommies (who already keep me sane every day) wouldn't judge if I was miserable or overly 'on' in an attempt to keep it together, and were people with whom I could just be me. And I learned which ones make their own wine.

I learned to laugh, because when someone gives the epileptic kid a strobe light at a ball game, or when he loses his medic alert bracelet because he's taken it off and is throwing it and diving for it at Sikome Lake, but can't reach it because of the stupid life jacket he wears for the same reason he wears the bracelet, that's just funny.

But most of all, I've learned how fluid I need to be. Change happens, sometimes for the good, sometimes not so much, and you don't get to draw a line under something and be done with it. I will never feel comfortable with Squid's epilepsy, or with anything outside of my control, but I am better at it than I was last year, which makes me a better person than I was last year, which in turn means I'm a better mom than I was last year. I guess there's something to be said for that.

An Ode To Sanity

Disclaimer: Please don't get offended because you think I am making fun of mental illness. I'm not. That's not what this blog is about, but there's always someone who gets pissed off at everything they see on the internet. If you MUST decide that I'm being disrespectful, please, feel free to get angry and send nasty comments. I will read them all, and eventually publish most of them. So if you're going to get mad, please make it as caps-locked/misspelled/badly-punctuated/completely irrational as possible. I need fodder for a future blog.

So, I'm on Facebook today, and one of my friends has posted the following status:

Just got a phone call from the mental health ward (it was a hospital phone number, as well i heard a page for someone to return back to the ward in the dack ground) he called because my number is an x and he was rather insistant on knowing what i was doing.

And all I could think was,

"That is AWESOME!"

That guy is super on the ball. I notice the shape of people's phone numbers ALL the time, but it's never occurred to me to actually DIAL them! That's like a whole new level of awesome!

And then it occurred to me that immediately figuring out the shape every time you take down a phone number might not actually be normal behavior. In fact, the more I think about it, the more not normal it sounds.

And that started me thinking....... If I think he's normal, and he's in the mental health ward, is it possible there are other things I do that are not entirely within the boundaries of 'normal'?

Since that is clearly ridiculous, I have decided today's blog will be about the totally normal shit I do all the time.

First of all, to expand on the phone number thing, I worry about people whose phone numbers are the wrong shape. I have absolutely no proof, not a shred of anecdotal evidence, and have never had my suspicions justified even by accident or coincidence, but it's awfully hard to trust someone who hides a pentagram in their phone number. I don't give them copies of my house keys or let them babysit (and cook and devour) my kids. It's always better to be safe than sorry.

I have the same problem with PIN numbers. I might be the easiest person in the world to steal from, as all the PIN numbers on all our bank cards and online accounts have to be a part of a (reasonably complicated- I'm crazy, not stupid) repeating pattern. When it's time to change the PIN, on to the next I go. If anyone ever figures it out, they will have total and unending access to all eleven dollars in our bank account, and we will be destitute. But I can't change the way I do it, because then ATM's will stress me out, and every grocery purchase will be slightly tainted.

Have you ever had someone knock on your door and drop by unannounced? (Which, by the way, IS NOT COOL- people who like order do NOT like being surprised. We prefer to schedule everything. EVERYTHING. Like even sex). If and when this happens, you can totally clean up your house in 18 seconds or less. Just put everything at right angles.

Thanks to millions of years of evolution by natural selection, the human body has adapted so that the left hemisphere of the brain is the more dominant in unfamiliar or stressful situations. The left brain is the 'logic' side of the brain, and when it takes over, it causes us to respond more favorably to order than disorder. This means that even if the object at right angles on the coffee table is a stack of books taller than you, your guest will see it, their left brain will take over, and they will interpret the space as 'clean'.* (see footnote)

It doesn't matter how much crap you have on the kitchen table. Just arrange it the way I want you to, and we'll all be much happier.

It extends to other things, as well.

I spend an inordinate amount of time making sure my eyebrows aren't all messed up. It drives me crazy to talk to someone with messy eyebrows. The sheer bedlam of it makes me cringe. I can actually feel it when my eyebrows are messed up. It bugs the crap out of me. And I assume that is all you can see while you're talking to me, because, quite frankly, if your eyebrows are all scribbly, it's all I can see while I'm talking to you. My best friends know this, and have been known to spend hours just glancing at me with messed up eyebrows and watching me compulsively fix my own. It's cruel, really.

We bought a trailer this year, which has solved one of my biggest issues. OTHER PEOPLE SHOWER GERMS. Have you ever been at a campground or in a hotel and you're completely clean and almost done your shower, and you accidentally slip a bit and touch the wall? Am I the only one who then needs to start the whole process over again so that I can get the unknown DNA off my skin? I can't be.

A few years ago, we were camping with our best friends and friends of theirs that we didn't know as well, and I went to have a shower the one afternoon. Through a series of mishaps caused by a cloth shower curtain and a strong breeze every time someone opened the shower room door, I had to have 4 consecutive showers. I was literally in the shower for almost an hour. And when I came back, the friends of the best friends wanted to know what had taken me so long. When I told them I got caught in a shower germ feedback loop, they looked confused. No one else even batted an eye. It's an actual thing.

There's lots of other totally normal shit I do throughout the course of my day, but if I told you about all of it at once, you'd think I was a nut job, so I will keep it to just these few.

So thank you, strange man with an excessive amount of freedom and the ability to make outside calls, thank you.

You have reminded me that I'm stark, raving, sane.


*This may or may not be true- when I want to convince someone I'm right, I am not above completely making up all sorts of bullshit statistics.

Soaring

Can we just talk for a moment about uncertainty?

Every year, Liz, who is into EVERYTHING, goes on a trip somewhere. Traveling is her thing. Someday, she  plans to do it all on her own, but right now, her trips are through school, or youth group, or camp, or whatever.

For legal reasons, every time a child under 18 goes on an overnight trip, the Calgary Board of Education requires parents to attend an information meeting to cover the itinerary, risks, waivers, rules, etc.

Every time I have been to one of these meetings, it is being run by a teacher with a plan. They have written an info package containing all the required information. It is the same info package as last year, with the dates and locations changed. They have agonized over this info package. It covers every possible eventuality. They print it out. They pass around copies to every parent who signs in. They then READ the info package aloud to 75 parents in a cramped band room.

It is a brilliant, foolproof system.

But it breaks down at the end.

They have to open the floor to questions, you see.

And every single time, Helicopter Mom "X" (There's one at every meeting. All schools have them- if you don't know who yours is, it's you. If that's the case, read the following closely) stands up and looks down at her list of questions. Her daughter, skinny and pasty and timid, who has been dragged to this meeting against her will (she doesn't have to be there, but mom likes to cover all her bases), cringes beside her.

"My Suzie gets anxious and likes to check in with us every night. Is she allowed to bring her cell phone?"

Are you sure SHE'S the anxious one?

"What if she doesn't like the people she's supposed to room with?"

She's 16. She should probably start practicing playing nicely with others.

"Gravy gives her hives. Does she HAVE to eat poutine while they're in Quebec?"

Yes. It's all they serve there. Be glad she's not going to Boston, what with all those beans.

"Will the kids have supervisors with them at all times?"

They probably let them pee alone.

"She gets cranky if she's not in bed by 9."

Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.

"You say in the package that I should send between $10 and $30 a day for food while they're in Whistler. But what's better? $10? Or $30? Should I split the difference at $20?"

Figure out what your kid will eat and multiply by three. Or don't. I'm sending 7 bucks and a map to all the really good dumpsters.

"She gets headaches- can she bring her Advil? Will someone hold onto it for her and measure it out into the medicine dropper and squirt it into her mouth for her?"

Are you sure this is the right class for her? Wouldn't she be more comfortable in, say, remedial home economics? Something with a bit of a slower pace?

And the information night, which should have taken 45 minutes, caps out at TWO. AND. A QUARTER. HOURS.

Incidentally, when one of the students does get sent home from London, it's never my kid.  It's Suzie, who has been arrested in an after hours club doing belly shots off a drag queen.

Her first taste of freedom has gone right to her head and she has lost her shit entirely. She's like the uncut version of Girls Gone Wild. Her plain beige no-nonsense bra came off at Heathrow Airport and no one has seen it since. She has a brand-new 10x14 inch tattoo of the Union Jack between her shoulder blades, and a piercing in her nose. She knows the British street terms for the good party drugs, and has been all lit up on Adam since the Back Dex ran out.

Seriously. Our children are in high school. I understand that we want to minimize the risks, but at some point, we have to trust that the people supervising them know what they're doing, and our kids need to start learning to use their judgement. And we need to understand that not everything is an emergency.

Would I trust my four year old to wander the streets of old Quebec with minimal supervision? Probably not. Let the 9 year old go white water rafting in Panama? Unlikely. 
But you need perspective. If 16 year old Suzie wants a frigging aspirin, let her take it. If you can't trust her to count to 2 instead of to 250 extra strength Tylenol, she probably shouldn't be going on the trip. You have bigger problems.

Which bring me to tonight's meeting. Not the regular information meeting, which will be happening closer to the trip, but a SPECIAL meeting.

I got this email the other day:

Important Meeting Notice for Music Student Families:

The Calgary Board of Education has called a mandatory emergency meeting for all parents and guardians of students travelling to England with the music tour in April.  The CBE would like to gauge parents’ and guardians’ feelings and concerns on perceived risks of travelling to England given recent events.

                    MEETING DETAILS: Date:  Wednesday February 4 2015

                                                            Time:  6:00 PM

                                                            Location:  Theatre, Central Memorial High School

Please reply if you are UNABLE to attend this meeting.  Instructions for those unable to attend will be forwarded by the CBE through Central Memorial High School.

Oh, dear God. I can see the teaching staff cringing as I read it.

Can you imagine what Suzie's mother is doing right now? SHE HADN'T EVEN THOUGHT TO WORRY ABOUT THIS! This adds a whole new array of possibilities to her already filled-to-capacity bucket o' fear!

I know that the CBE is covering their legal asses. I know they're making sure they don't get their collective butts sued off. 97% of the parents attending this evening know it.

Oh, but poor Suzie's mom.

She and her ilk have probably already written 6 emails to the school, demanding an analysis of the statistical probability of a terrorist attack during the 10 days her daughter will be overseas, with anecdotal evidence, supporting data and referencing source material.

She has probably phoned twice to discuss whether A330's get blown up more often than 747's, and whether anyone thinks that wearing a flak jacket will get her arrested at airport security. She has made flash cards of pictures of 'terrorist types' so her daughter will recognize a suicide bomber when she sees one. She is considering starting a petition to cancel the trip altogether.

Here's the thing.

I love my kids.

But I can't worry about everything, all the time. I have to figure out what's really worth being scared about, and let the other stuff slide. I have to weigh the pros and the cons and decide what's worth pouring my energies into.

What makes our kids special, and makes them interesting, and gives them all their 'them-ness' are life experiences. If they never did a single thing I wouldn't do, they'd be me. The world can only handle one of those. Things go horribly wrong. I've seen it on Doctor Who, and it's messy as hell.

There was a possibility my daughter might have crashed the car on the way to Bragg Creek last weekend, two days after she got her license and the morning after I taught her to drive a standard. Not a big possibility, but it existed. And I thought of it. But she felt she could do it, and she's got reasonably good judgement, so I rolled with it. But the picture she took of herself, on her very first trip out of town in a vehicle under her sole control, tells me the risk was worth it.

I'm a homebody, and it would never occur to me to move to a different city to go to school with a bunch of strangers I didn't like yet. But if I hadn't let Isaiah go, my mom wouldn't get to tell me how excited she was the other day because her grandson called her just to chat and they talked for 45 minutes about his goals, and his life, and how her retirement is going. He is closer to us now BECAUSE he did something that scared me.

So, to the 'Suzie's moms' of the world, what I'm trying to say is this....

The minute we start limiting our children because of of our own anxieties, we start to cripple them. Fear wins. Uncertainty wins. The terrorists win. Whatever it is, whatever you dread deep down inside, it wins.

It's not what we do for our children that matters.

It's what we teach them to do for themselves.

And who doesn't want to teach them to soar?



* Quick note- Liz turned 18 last week. She is now of legal age, and can sign her own life away on a waiver form. So was it I that went to the emergency meeting  tonight?  Hells, no.

Fly, little birdie, fly.

And say hi to Suzie's mom for me. :D

The Great Divide

So, thanks to the great divide, Jason and I have what amounts to two separate sets of children, who have what ended up being two completely different sets of parents. Set #1 had poor parents with the will to live, and set #2 had parents with more money, but who were too tired to care.

As a couple, we have managed to figure out how to screw each and every child up in a completely new and different way from the child before them. I'm sure a lot of these problems are familiar to people with multiple spawn, but we're always seeing new twists caused by the age difference.

Our kids are currently ages 20, 18 (in 3 days!!!), 9, and 4. There are people closer in age to their own children than our eldest child is to our youngest. It makes it exciting when we go out for dinner as a family and Jason and I sit on one side of the table, the big kids sit on the other side, and we let the littles fall where they may. Then we lean back in our chairs and watch the rest of the diners try to do the math. It adds to their confusion that the smaller humans listen to and obey NOT A SINGLE ONE OF US. It's impossible to distinguish parent from child from possible grandparent from distant cousin. It provides us with an endless source of amusement. Add my own parental unit and THEIR age difference to the mix, and you can actually see people's heads explode.

We have paid for babysitters for the little kids exactly twice. Part of being a family (in our house, anyway) means that you have to babysit whenever we say so, and get paid exactly zero dollars an hour for the privilege of doing it. Both our big kids love this part of siblinghood so much that they've taken extreme measures to avoid it. I am even willing to hazard a guess that that's why Isaiah chose to go to college in Edmonton. Anything within driving distance was too close. Liz has gone one step further and has decided to move to Panama for 6 months in September. I feel like they're trying to tell us something. I'll let you know when I figure out what....

NONE of our kids know what it's like to have new clothes. Isaiah and Liz were raised on hand me downs because, quite frankly, that's all we could afford. The two younger ones are suffering the same fate because it's been part of my life for so long that buying them all new stuff is offensive to my sensibilities. Seriously- all they're going to do is wreck them. Eva has never met a tomato sauce she didn't need to hug, and Squid likes to roll on sharp things, like rocks, or razor blades, while wearing his school uniform. It seems to be affecting each kid differently in the long run- Isaiah can't walk past a pair of overpriced jeans now without spending that month's grocery money on the damn things, and even now that Liz has a job, her very favorite outfits come from thrift shops and farmer's markets. The end result here is that both my older kids are now dressed better than me, regardless of what they spend. Apparently, it doesn't take much to top my 'yoga pants and a tank top' ensemble. And my clothes are even new.

My kids also hoard chairs. It's weird. It matters not whether those chairs are in the living room, at the dinner table, or out camping. There are never. enough. chairs. The younger ones are especially sneaky about stealing the seat of someone else.  It's a thing of beauty to watch, actually- much like those species of trees that have evolved to produce poisonous leaves to deter caterpillars; my little ones, who are so easily manhandled out of chairs by children 12 and 16 years older than them, have developed a stealth mode to compensate for their weaknesses. Quite often, someone will look up from a campfire and realize that they've been sitting on the ground for the last hour and a half and their ass is freezing because there's a four year old in their $90 camping chair with built in cooler, and they have no idea when or how it happened.

Things I was morally opposed to with the bigger kids have fallen by the wayside. Hand held video games and DVD players on long drives no longer make me cringe (unless I forget the cord to plug the damn things in and the battery dies). Barbie dolls, with their unrealistic proportions and endless pink girliness were something Liz was never allowed to own. She was forced to play with them, in secret, at her friends' homes, and thus her body image was never in jeopardy- right up until I realized that Barbies had nothing to do with it, and all 12 year old girls thought they were strangely shaped and funny looking. Now Eva owns the entire collection, including such favorites as 'Naked All The Time Barbie', and 'Colored On His Face In A Fit Of Rage Ken'.

I once sent a gift home from a birthday party of Isaiah's after telling a relative in no uncertain terms that he was not allowed to play with guns. Toy guns promote violence and violent thinking, and my children were going to be raised believing in the sanctity of life, with the knowledge that words are better peacemakers than weapons. Now I don't care if someone gives Squid a fully automated SCUD launcher, as long as he plays with it outside and lets me relax for 11 minutes while he takes out the neighbors. It's about perspective.

Isaiah and Liz didn't learn about sex till they were in grade 5 and had THE CLASS at school, after which I explained anything they didn't understand in terms appropriate to their age and developmental levels. Squiddy and Eva know things that would make a sailor blush. In an attempt to have a meaningful dialogue last night with Squid, we had this conversation:

Me: Squid, what's your favorite thing about yourself?
Squid: I guess that I'm funny and smart. (Score one for positive reinforcement!) What's your favorite thing about you, mom?
Me: I guess my favorite thing about myself is that I somehow ended up with the four coolest kids in the history of the world. That a pretty neat thing- I wonder how I did it?
Squid: It's probably cause you and dad keep having sex.

Right, then.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that regardless of whether you have 8 kids under four, or are the 50 year old parent of a single 10 month old, or left a 10 year gap between each of your three kids, you're going to screw them up.

Perfect parenting is an impossible goal. You might as well take on world hunger single-handedly, or try to figure out how the caramel actually gets inside the Caramilk bar. It's probably less frustrating in the long run.

Aim low. Start small. Celebrate the victories and keep the failures in perspective.  Quit judging yourself. Any day you can keep them from biting the head off the hamster is a good day.

Now go have a bottle of wine.