The Other Passion

So I indulged my other passion this week--my other passion besides Scotch, the Real Housewives of NYC, bi-daily naps, and writing: I spent the week designing and creating hats (if you love hats you can see some of my work at redwhinedesign.etsy.com). Then, I attended the Fabricated fashion show to show and sell my wares!

The week, and the show, were both a complete panic, utter mayhem, and blindingly fun.

I met some fantastic, incredibly fashionable people. Got to hang out with my oldest daughter Emma, as well as a good friend, Dale, who came to drink wine and people-watch. And I sold some hats.

There was one woman I'll never forget. She was about 60 years old, absolutely beautiful, and impeccably dressed. She approached my table with the excitement and conviction of a woman who knows who she is and what she wants (the woman I hope to be someday!).

She went like a radar-guided missile to a chocolate brown pill box with tulle and feathers. She picked it up. She tried it on. And she started to glow.

She literally beamed. She beamed at me. She beamed at her reflection. She beamed at her friend. It was a pretty special moment.

She bought the hat and wore it.

My gorgeous girls wearing my glamorous hats

I saw her, later that night, sitting across the runway from me, and she was still beaming.

I struggle with who I am and what I'm suppose to be (besides a occasionally reluctant mom and difficult wife). I make hats, I illustrate, paint, and write poems for a children's book (my own vanity project), I fiendishly style my husband and kids, and I design, redesign our house regularly (which seldom gets done owing to the fact that my husband refuses to live without a roof for 6 months), so I decorate and redecorate, and I write, and edit, and write, and edit.

I'm sure there's an artist in me somewhere, and frankly, I'm a little afraid to let her out, but Saturday night, when that beautiful woman put on the hat I'd made, and felt even more beautiful, I knew who I was--if only for a moment--and it felt good. Almost as good as a new hat.

I Love a Good Reprobate

I love trouble. No. Let me rephrase: I love causing trouble.

I hate being in trouble, dealing with trouble, or sorting out kids in trouble. But, alas, as is inevitably the case, my trouble-lovin' is catching up with me.

I've just been roundly scolded, by one of my kids, for something I wrote**. Something racy, outrageous, salacious, tasteless, and highly unseemly for a person in my position (which is a person who's squeezed an even handful of individuals out of this now flabby vagina--too much information, right? Probably. If you can erase that image from your mind, you undoubtedly should.)

But in my defence, what I wrote wasn't even my line! I stole it from my Mom*. It was something I heard regularly growing up, along with, Ahhhh, go play in the traffic; the ever popular, You little twat!; and the never to be forgotten family classic, Be quiet or I'll drop kick you in the crotch!

Yet, my line or not, I've been held accountable for my glib fingers and taken firmly to task.

I am, without reservation, always sorry and occasionally devastated when I hurt someone's (anyone's) feelings. I don't ever want to intentionally cause another person pain (unless they're willing, of course!), yet I find myself back here blogging and walking that razor's edge between saying too much and saying waaayyyyyy too much.

What can I say? Simply this: I am, alas and alack, an unreformed trouble-making reprobate.

Not an easy mom to have certainly, but, well, at least I'm never boring!

* The offending sentence, makes an appearance courtesy of K.J. (my mom).
** Said offending sentence can be viewed on my twitter account at undonemom

The Great Toothless One

Thursday.

March 31st.

1:47 P.M.

Spring Break 2011.

My fabulous, glorious, smart, sweet, gigantic-toothed 9-year old son smacked his face on a water slide and knocked out his front tooth.

His permanent front tooth.

Poor little poop-shitz.

I cried (when he went to bed). His dad cried, his two older sisters cried, his Grannie cried, his older brother Skyped from China and kindly, warmly, and lovingly told Toothless he looked good. And his younger sister, well, she was at a play-date and became wickedly jealous that he got 2 milkshakes for supper. Life's hard when your 7 and your brother is getting all the attention.

But Himself, the ferocious toothless one had only one concern: that he not get the replacement tooth they bond to the other teeth. No. He wants the "flipper tooth," so he can pop it out and scare the little kids.

Me? I want to have a ceremony (though we have nothing to bury--the tooth itself being somewhere in the drainage system of the wave-pool). I want to host a wake to say goodbye to "the tooth." A wake where we sing laments to the tooth's courage, encourage spontaneous eulogies from tipsy cousins, and drink copious toasts to the lost money we were going to use for a holiday that's now in the hands of our dentist.

My poor, sweet little man. His poor, huge lost tooth. Life will never be the same.

But, it could have been worse, I suppose. He might have lost one of his permanent teeth--oh shit! wait. It was a permanent tooth. Alright, it couldn't have been much worse.

Poor little poop-shitz.

Barbies and Boogers

I'm up to my boobs in Barbie's and boogers. I thought I'd gotten through the worst, most exhausting part of parenting (and if such a magical place existed it would be populated with rainbow unicorns and tinklingly sweet apple juice rivers) but, alas, I hoped in vain.

No such luck. I am mired in demanding, nose-picking, genital scratching, MOM!-I'm thirsty-get-me-a-drink (at 4 AM) people who live on nothing but Cheerios and Cheese-String. And to add insult to injury, I have a MOM!-I-need-a-big-envelope-RIGHT-NOW-and-we-only-have-small-ones (at 11 PM) stropy teenager on my hands.

But I suppose it could be worse.

Somebody could have diarrhea.

Dear Sirs/Madams,

March 17th, 2011 

Dear Sirs/Madams,

While I fully appreciate the great distinctions you have bestowed upon me in these last 23 years of life-consuming and life-altering employment, I would like to officially tender my resignation from the positions of:

Chief Decision-Maker (CDM),
Chief Lunch-Packer (CLP),
Chief Cheerleader (CC),
Chief Getter-Upper-In-The-Nighter (CGUITN),
and finally, but not exclusively, Chief Head Whine Reducer, General Referee, and occasional Short-Order Cook (CHWR, GR, and SOC). 

While I have been thoroughly honored to have possessed the positions of CDM, CLP, CC, CGUITN,  CHWR, GR, and SOC, simultaneously I might add, I feel, Sirs and Madams, that to preserve my sanity, sense of self, libido, and baby-soft hands (earned from years of dishwashing in Palmolive),  I must humbly and immediately relinquish my positions.

I wish to thank you for the years and years and years of experience I've gained, and, while feeling somewhat maudlin at our parting, I feel confident that I have given my all, and that you have, without reservation, taken it (leaving me bereft of taut skin, a sense of humour, my finely ground-down back molars, and/or any or all sex appeal).

Finally, upon my leave taking, I would like to wish you all the best in your future endeavors, and leave you with some small pieces of wisdom I have gained over the years:

Wash up as far as possible. Wash down as far as possible. And then.......... wash possible.



Your ever devoted, simply sapped Mother.

P.S.  See you in the morning you little buggers!

What You Get is What You Get

“What you get is what you get. What you do with what you get is what’s important.”

I just heard this statement as I stood at the stove making my umpteenth box of macaroni, for the umpteenth time, in my umpteenth year as a parent. I don’t know why now, why today, or why this box of macaroni but this statement meant something. It rang my proverbial bell and as little stars and cartoon birds circled my head like a halo, my own little life and all it’s possible lives flashed before me. 

Who might I have been if I hadn’t been blessed and burdened with my kids? 

I’d have traveled certainly. My feet constantly itch to move and be away. To just pick up and leave, it doesn’t matter where. Well, with the exception of Wal-Mart, Ikea, or the neighborhood bouncy house. 

I’d have been an artist. Immersing myself in the deep and soul-enriching joy of creation. With the exception of creating anything with macaroni, pudding, white glue, or small cut-up pieces of drinking straws. 

I’d have engaged the world as a woman, rather than a mother. A being whole and entire unto myself without additional human appendages--including any and all waste those appendages create, expel, and talk about, loudly, at random and inconvenient moments. 

I’d have aged more gracefully, or maybe less--probably less, knowing me, but it would have been way more fun than the slow mudslide into this bi-monthly-at-home-hair-colouring-mustache-waxing-whisker-plucking-sexless-middle-agedness.  

I’d have been a bad-ass anarchist. Wait, I am a semi-bad-ass anarchist (I occasionally park in the Teacher parking when I drop my kids off at school). I’d have drank more, smoked more, had more crazy, borderline illegal sex with more partners, had more tattoos, driven faster, taken more risks, and lived louder. And I’d certainly have eaten better. Rich, delicious, exotic, wild food--if I have to have one more pot of spaghetti with Prego, or smell one more over-boiled Maple Leaf weiner, I might actually eviscerate someone (and gleefully see if Gordon Ramsay can make me a tasty dish of adolescent entrails). 

But, I got this life. I got two marriages, one good. I got 5 kids. I got gray hair, wrinkles, stretch marks, and a bad attitude. I got what I got. Now, have I done enough with it?

I’m not sure. There’s no threat of me winning Mother of the Year (you might already have sussed that out for yourself). And there’s absolutely no danger of me ever being nominated for Wife of the Year. But as I sit here, in the indoor playground from Hell, and watch my kids play, smile, laugh and wipe boogers on the  obnoxious little bugger pushing past, I can’t help but think that if I haven’t made my life into everything it could or ought to have been, at least I have my teeth, I love my family, I can still laugh, even at 5-year old creeps with snot encrusted hair, and best of all, in Canada alcohol is completely legal. 

What's Bred in the Bone

What separates me from other parents? What makes me unique, special, individual, memorable to my children? If I die, Heaven forbid, what part of me will be left in my children's memories and hearts? I know what I hope it will be--my tenderness, my thoughtfulness, my joyousness, my epic love for them.  In reality, it'll probably be my bloody, horrid, foul trucker-mouth. And friends, that memory will be well earned: my cursing vocabulary is immense--think one-eyed, drunken sailor on shore-leave at last call in a whore house--and that's before my morning coffee. When I really get warmed up I take swearing to heights entirely unequaled. I am, though I say it myself, a bloody prodigy.

It's shameful. I know. I should hang my head, wash my mouth with soap, be a better role model. My poor, poor husband, who wouldn't say shit if he had a mouthful, is often aghast and horrified, yet at the same time salaciously intrigued. My trouble is simple, and here I am admitting it--"Hi my name is Danielle and I'm a swearaholic"--I love to swear. I love the explosive use of language. I love the reaction, the jaw-drop or the ever-so-slight-eye-narrow or the shocked guffaw, (and here's the truth, ugly as it is) I am what I am, and I love being crass.

It's a horrible affliction of having grown up on the wrong side of the wrong side of the tracks--I struggled to make good, make nice, fit in and climb the social ladder, then having mastered the art of social elegance and been granted the secret handshake to the Mid-to-Upper Echelon Club, I find my mouth overflowing with profane obscenities. What can I say? "What's bred in the bone, will come out in the flesh," and man, when it comes out, it comes out in spades.

"But what about your sweet innocent children?! How dare you expose them to bad language! For shame," you say.

What can I say, except your right. It's all around indecent parenting. I know it is. And, for what it's worth, I curb my vicious tongue when I'm volunteering at the school tea party.  But....well....frankly....for the rest of it, I simply say, "Fuck yes, I want a hamburger."

Every parent has to leave a legacy, right? I mean some of you might leave your kids distinguished blood lines. Some of you might leave them a rich tapestry of faith and traditions. Some of you might even leave the family hardware store. Me, I'm leaving my kids a dying language. The fine, well honed, and underused art of swearing.

I mean, what the cuss, it could be worse. I could swear like a drunken sailor and smell like the back seat of a taxi. At least I wash my armpits, if not my mouth, with soap, and, well, it is still the mouth I kiss them goodnight with. And so far, the little shits still kiss me back.

The Good Parent

Do you ever wonder if your parents did a good job? Parenting, I mean. Now that you're an adult, a parent yourself, do you ever look back, at your childhood as a whole, not just pieces or incidents, but transposing yourself as an educated observer, and examine how you were raised and how (if you support the nurture vs. nature argument) the way you were raised affected, affects you as a person, a parent, a partner?

God! Such a huge question for a Sunday morning! But as I find myself in my personal confessional (the ever anonymous and shriving blogosphere) it feels right to ask.

I have, so far, raised three nose-picking-bum-scratching-screeching-whiny people to adulthood. Two of them are off, away, experimenting with who they are and who they want to be, and lurching toward autonomy. And one of them, my small sweet middle child, my own Mikey, is bursting at the seams to join them. She's counting down the months until she can escape her mother's clutches (and continual harping about doing the dishes and picking up her shoes).

I've always smugly congratulated myself on what lovely people I created. How my hard work and investment in them is paying off with people who care about others, have a voice, and choose lives that make them happy. But last night, when all was quiet, and I went searching for a book to read to my 6 year old, I found something else instead, I found an old diary. And yes, shockingly, I broke the cardinal rule of parenting: I read it.

Actually, I only read some of it, a few paragraphs here and there, but enough to know that the glorious, near angelic mother-image I had created in my brain, is, frankly, rather tarnished.

After a solid 15 minutes of utter, miserable self-indulgence I began to wonder about my parenting. To wonder what my actions and inactions have really done to affect my kids. To wonder how I might have lifted them up, and how I might have hobbled them. I know I'm human. I won't ever be perfect, but mostly I go blithely through my days and weeks and years as a mother thinking and believing that I'm doing a good job. I never (or very rarely) take my parenting out and look at it, thoroughly. Perhaps it's too dangerous to look that closely, it might result in spontaneous combustion, or maybe it's just easier to tell myself I'm doing the best I possibly can, patting myself on the back, and then firmly assisting the little blighters out of the nest as soon as is socially acceptable.

So I'm left with the big question, dangling over my head, like a finely honed guillotine (rather than the finely honed halo I'd imagined)--Am I a Good Parent?


The only way I can think to begin to answer this question is go to the source of all wisdom, the modern day guru on the mountain, the Library of Everything: I will consult the Internet.

Let me tell you--and please my friends, I beg you, implore you, heed this advice--don't Google "How to be a good parent." Just don't do it. There are more than 50 pages of links (I stopped looking after page 57, but I suspect it goes on indefinitely) of everything from What's The Secret to Being a Good Parent by William Shatner, no less, to The 10 Commandments for Good Parenting, to How to be a Good Parent to Young Cricketers. Yikes. Who knew I had to even consider what type of cricketing parent I was?

Some sites recommend a return to traditional "authoritative" parenting--firm boundaries, physical closeness (such as extended breastfeeding), and high expectations (think 1950s dad). Some sites recommend traditional, biblically sanctioned parenting (or in other words), spare the rod, spoil the child (think 1650s dad).

Other sites recommend attachment parenting, which suggests that if your baby wants it, your baby gets it, regardless of your need to sleep, pee, take a shower, drink a bottle of wine, or have sex with your husband (think 1050s mom--no wet nurse for you!)

And the list, advice, suggestions, thoughts, insights, scientific studies, religious arguments, and seditious suggestions go on and on and on.

Thus, my friends, after hours of research, reading, weighing this advice against that, and learning more about what makes a good cricketing parent than I ever hoped to, or thought I'd know, I feel compelled to reduce the chatter. I feel moved to create a simple, 5 question quiz for you to discern whether you qualify as a Good Parent. So here goes:

1. Do you love your children?
2. Do you tell them and show them you love them?
3. Do you do what you can to keep them safe and teach them to keep themselves safe?
4. Do you go to bed at night knowing that you might have screwed up a few times during the day, but that you did your best by them and yourself (a little insight is the key import here)? 
5. Do you find a way to love yourself, even a little, and forgive your parenting muck-ups? (nothing better than some good modelling to teach 'do what I do', right)?

Well? How'd ya do? Pretty good, I'd bet. And so did I.

So, I'm not perfect. I'm flawed actually, burnished to a high gloss patina, in fact. But I love my kids and I want them to have a life filled with glorious adventures,  high highs (not too high, and low lows, but not too low), and the good sense to be themselves and know their entirely fallible mother loves them.

Some would say it's not enough, that I'm failing my kids, that I'm failing as a parent. But screw 'em. Here I make a nod to my own mother's parenting wisdom, "If ignorance is bliss, tis folly to be wise." Just good solid advice.

That and, "Dani, for Christ's sake, stay off that InterWeb, it's nothing but trouble!"

Love ya Mom!

The ABCs of Christmas

Why haven't I been blogging? Christmas. It's all about Christmas. Christmas takes me several months to prepare for. So what, right? Who doesn't take ages to prepare for Christmas (well, my husband for one, but you get what I mean).

The last few years for our family have been different at Christmas. We are doing everything we can to take the focus off gifts and put it on spending time together and creating memories (instead of spending money we don't have and creating debt). So it's my parenting mission, starting late October, to lower expectations, and believe me, it's a full time job. 

 Thus I find myself, 10 days after my 43rd birthday, finally getting to my blog. But sadly my friends, instead of some thorough scouring of some insane moment of my parenting life--like getting my hair cut without informing my 8-year old and his extreme (did I say extreme?!) reaction: he ran away screaming, "You're not my Mom! You're not my Mom!!"; or my 6-year old spying her half-way hidden Christmas present from Santa in the garage and having the mother-of-all-meltdowns when I told her to get her skinny butt in the house, and that what ever she saw (as if I didn't know) wasn't for her to see, damn it, so GET IN THE HOUSE! (really, bad reactionary parenting at it's best)--you are going to get a sample of what I've been filling my time with:

I'm writing and illustrating an alphabet book for my kids and my nieces and nephews. I've been obsessed. I draw, paint, and write poems 22 hours a day (I'm rhyming in my sleep). So I thought I would share. Enjoy:

Zippidy Do Daw, Zippidy Day

My oh my, what a wonderful day.

My house is a mess, my hair is a rat's nest, my children are scruffy, my husband is nerdy, my teenager is sleeping, still, and my legs are shockingly hairy. But, today, I'm happy.

I dunno why. It's one of those singularly strange occurrences of life--chaos reigns down, winter's approaching, the dishwasher leaves crusty brown grunge in the mugs, yet in the midst of it all, a small sliver of peace.

I'm happy to take it. This definitely calls for cake.

The Morning After

It's the morning after and the hangovers are palpable. Twitchy, tired and headachey, mung-mouthy kids wandering around in a daze, snapping at me while not-so-subtlety squirrelling away their next fix.

Sally Launder

It's November 1st. The morning after the night before and my house, always untidy (see previous post) is liberally sprinkled in candy wrappers, chip bags, half-chewed toffees, and semi-sucked lollies. It's the day after Hallowe'en--the day I turn into a full-blown witch of MacBethian proportions.

I used to love Hallowe'en (and mostly I still do--mostly). When I was a kid, and even when my kids were young. I loved dressing up and dressing them up. I loved carving a pumpkin, creating elaborate decorations for the house and yard, and passing out candy after encouraging the little princesses, clowns, and pirates to sing a song or perform a cute dance.

I used to hand-make all my kids costumes, planning sometimes months in advance. And I would make elaborate costumes for myself and my mostly unwilling husband--we were Fred and Wilma, Bugs and Elmer Fudd, and my best favorite, Elvis and Priscilla.

These days? I'm lucky if I can make it to Wal-Mart by the 30th of October to scrabble through the last of the costumes scattered on the floor to find something that might fit if we grease one of the kids with butter and wedge them into it. Most of the candy gets eaten before it ever makes it to a trick-or-treater's bag, and I never dress up anymore. In fact, it's a close thing if I get dressed at all (you'd be surprised how many people think my slippers and ratty old bathrobe are a costume--especially when I don't comb my hair).

But really, it's the post-Hallowe'ening that sprouts warts on my nose. It's the age old battle of the candy. They want it and are willing to resort to any means possible to get it (in fact, the CIA could take lessons on covert operations from my kids). I want some semblance of sanity (and moderately healthy kids who get at least one green piece of food per week) in our house, and am willing to do almost anything to get it, so a heavy battle with occasional casualties ensues.

My resolve to remain strong this year (like every other) will, most likely, be eroded away by heavy and persistent whining, crying, stomping, sneaking, whaling, and door-slamming. My will to live and desire for healthy well-balanced children will be completely subsumed by candy-madness.

I know I need to be a strong parent who sets a solid example of healthy living and moderation for my children. I know I need to be the hand that guides. I know I need to set the boundaries my children are looking for. I know. I know!

Chances are though, I won't. Chances are pretty good that they'll eat candy 'til they're ill, be too full of crap to eat supper, go to bed sticky and stomach-achey, and wake up cranky. But in the hours they toss and turn, with their teeth stuck together with jelly beans, I will practice my own lack of moderation while I sip several Brandy and sodas while saving them from themselves by eating the candy myself.

I'll share with my husband, of course. I mean, I'm not that much of a witch!

Our Lady of Perpetual Mess

I am, I freely admit, a disastrous housekeeper. My house is a shambles. Which causes no end of anxiety for me. I mean, my house is such a disaster, I sincerely fear play dates. Not because I know that nicely turned-out parents in their tidy vehicles will arrive at our door to pick up their darlings only to be shocked at the overflowing laundry bins and Lego underfoot, but because I won't be able to locate their precious, but oh-so-easily misplaced progeny.

Now, don't get me wrong, we aren't depraved. We don't share our home with cockroaches, mice, or assorted vermin (that we can see), and we're certainly not candidates for Hoarders (God forbid!), but we're so deeply mired in stuff you have to wade through the hip-deep detritus to find the couch.

I'm not proud of this, and I certainly don't relish having to shovel a path to the bathroom each morning--in fact, sometimes I become so claustrophobic I go on a rampage filling plastic bin bags with any and all toys, clothes, shoes, bedding, and assorted small appliances within reach and hoof it off to the Sally Ann--but I'm sufficiently uninterested to make a permanent change.

So I've decided to find and extol the virtues of living in a mess. It's my new mission, maybe even my new religion. I will convert at least 3 people a decade. It'll be a small congregation, but a lazy one. We'll call ourselves Our Lady of Perpetual Mess and some of our hymns will include, Go Throw it Off the Mountain and Amazing Glaze (on the Bathroom Counter). Of course the backbone of my new faith will be the Five Virtues:

Moderation: Avoid extremes of housekeeping. Forebear resenting injuries caused by tripping over your husband's shoes so much as you think they deserve.

Tranquility: Be not disturbed at trifles, like a strawberry stuck to the kitchen floor for two weeks, or at accidents common or unavoidable from stepping and sliding on said strawberry.

Order: Let all your things have their places, and when they don't, let the places they lie be their new places. 

Resolution: Resolve to perform what you ought, when you're not tired or to busy blogging. Perform without fail what you resolve, when your in-laws are coming for the weekend.

Cleanliness: Tolerate no uncleanness in body, clothes, or wine glasses, but in habitation, give yourself ample leeway.

I feel a great weight lifted off my shoulders at this decision (mostly because I shrugged off my wool coat on to the floor). It's freeing to aim for the middle. No more battles. No more weeping. No more renting of clothes. No more shouting down the hall to get kids to pick up their backpacks, or threatening life and limb when I find a 4-day old bowl of mushroom soup in the laundry room, or frantically flipping through the Yellow Pages to find a divorce lawyer after discovering toenail clippings on the kitchen table...again!

And when Our Lady descends to finally bring me to that tidy, quiet, peaceful place in the sky, I'll know I did my job. I'll know that my family is safe from pestilence and disease because my conversion has enabled them to be exposed to every known virus on the planet, that, and the fact that they'll probably find enough money (and popcorn kernels and Barbie shoes and crayons and underwear) under the cushions of the couch to hire a house-keeper.

Blogging, Narcissism, and my Grandma

God I love blogging. I love looking back at snapshots of my life and my relationship with myself and my kids.

Is that narcissistic?

Yeah, actually. I think it might be. Just a little. But perhaps not more so than journaling (except perhaps that journaling is a private, meditative act and blogging is a public, dirty-laundry-airing act, at which I excel, thankyouverymuch).

My Grandma--Clara was her name--was a faithful journaler. Every day she'd write a little of what went on in her day:

October 18, 1946,


Cloudy today. Feels like more snows coming. John went into Munson today and wasn't back until after supper. Bought Karen boots. Shot a coyote sneaking around the chickens. Repair chicken coop tomorrow. 

She wrote for years like that, most of her adult life. We found them, the stack of diaries she'd carefully kept, in a small credenza in her sewing room after she died. Reading them now is fantastic, like unearthing some glimpse into a foreign, ancient life. I feel strangely close to her reading her tiny bird-like scrawl across the page, suspecting that she wrote small to conserve paper (she was a fabulous conserver, she'd have put Al Gore to shame).

In fact, I feel closer to her now than I did when she was alive (and I loved her enormously before she died)--now that I'm a mother, and not unlike her, a sometimes frustrated, sometimes unfulfilled mother. My grandmother was an artist in her heart and in her soul, but in her life she was a small-town, lonely, disappointed farm-wife and mother. I think she lived, and died, resentful of how she lived. I think she wanted and needed more. She didn't get it. Perhaps because of the time, perhaps because she didn't know how, perhaps because she was denied it.  She lived out her resentment, often shown in the harsh, fierce entries in her journals. She felt cold, and that's the way she wrote.

So I follow in her footsteps and write about myself and my life. Why? I don't know. What compels me to take what small, precious time I have to spare and put my thoughts down? Maybe it's a genetic compulsion. Maybe, fearing, knowing, we're mortal, we try--from cave paintings to blogging--we try to preserve a part of ourselves, our history, to pass on who we are, not just what we've done or how to do it, to our children and the future.

Everywhere I go, everything I write or say, I take a part of Clara and Karen with me. These often troubled women and mothers who were and are my role models. They prop me up and, just because they were and are, make it possible for me to write and speak my mind. Yes, I'm just as often frustrated and unfulfilled as I am the opposite, but I write and rant and rave and scream above the din, and I love to do it. It makes me happy.

So am I a narcissist? or is this genetic?

What does it matter? My grandma would be glad that I'm finding joy (though it would probably piss her off a little too). I am, as she did, leaving my own small, sometimes crazy record, of who I am. And, like her own small message to the future, maybe, someday, this too will matter.

I'm a Teenage Medusa

MMMmmmmm HHhmmmmmm,

It's cocktail time. Time to crack open a nice, medium-bodied (by this I mean medium-priced) bottle of red wine. With a twist off cap for easy access, of course. None of those pesky corks to slow me down.

I love this time of day. My house is as close to quiet as it ever gets. The ankle-biters are in bed. The teenager is out (it's Friday after all). The husbands in the shower. And I'm curled like a pretzel on a red leather Ikea couch with my bottle of red handy, and I'm relishing it.

I've been ridiculously moody lately (which might account for why Bart is in the shower much longer than usual--either that or he's got some "personal business" to attend to). More moody that usual, though I personally know some individuals who would dispute my ability to be "more moody." I always find that ignoring these people, or the occasional well timed tongue-lashing helps sort them out--of course, withholding cookies and sex (depending on the audience) helps too.

Perhaps it's the weather--it actually snowed here this morning, or perhaps it's nearing a full moon, or perhaps it's that I've been trying to wean myself off my antidepressants, but all I know is that I'm a terrible bitch.

Contrary to popular belief, it's not all that fun being a bitch. In fact, it lacks most any kind of appeal. My family looks at me as if I'm going to grow snakes for hair to turn them all to stone. My inability to sustain a reasonable conversation without significant eye rolling and snorting has kept me from seeing or speaking to any friends (after all, I'd like to keep them). And even my reflection finds my sour-puss distasteful.

So today, after my kids carefully skirted the filthy kitchen, where I was aggressively preparing myself, and only myself, something to eat, while purposefully ignoring the sink overflowing with dishes, and my husband hastily tripped over the back doorstep terrified he was getting home hairy-eyeball late, I had an epiphany. I had reverted to my 15-year old self. I was behaving like a self-obsessed, unbearable, nauseating teenager.

Good God! What a sickening revelation! I'm my own worst nightmare. All I need is a bottle of gin hidden under my bed and it may as well be 25 years ago.

I swiftly and firmly decided not to indulge myself. I promptly took a shower (the first in 3 days), sterilized the kitchen, made a reasonably healthy bedtime snack for the nose-miners, with only 3 marshmallows each (so stop judging!), then tucked them in, popped a Wellbutrin, and without further delay, unscrewed my bottle of wine.

Thank God for age. I wouldn't go back to high school for a billion dollars--gin gives me heartburn.

Deep, Dark Secret

She had a deep, dark secret. One she couldn't share with her friends, her family, her husband, or her kids. Was it shame that kept her locked in this emotional prison? Was it shame?

To carry such a weight was nearly unbearable. To keep this secret for so long. To long to tell. The overwhelming need. She felt it rise in her throat, inexorably creeping. She wanted so desperately to tell. Anyone. Just share and not feel judged. But she knew judgment was inevitable. And what came with the judgment, she wondered. Would she be worthy anymore? Would her children be unable to respect her? Love her? Could she love herself?

So she wore her secret like an old bandage needing to be removed. Greying and fraying at the edges. Losing it's stick. But she was too frightened of the pain she knew she'd feel in tearing it off.

What did it mean to be a mother? Surely, even a mother is an individual who's entitled to secrets. If our past forms our present, and if who we are is defined by who we've been, then, surely, surely, we are all patchwork people of truths, lies, successes, failures, and secrets.

So why did she feel so duplicitous keeping secrets? Why did she feel that her failures were not just failures, her secrets not just secrets, but were somehow untellable, unthinkable, unknowable? Suddenly, she felt becoming and being a mother had erased her past? Erased everything that she'd made and lost of herself in the years she was before they were born? It all started to feel so surreal, so unreal, like her life was merely an old film she'd seen once. Was anything she'd done or said or been or felt real?  Had any of it actually happened? Or did she begin when her son took his first breath?

Perhaps giving birth takes our own lives, she thought. Perhaps, what we barter for the life of a child, our child, our children, is ourselves.

No one tells you. No one says that you sell your soul to the future to have a child. That your past is buried, but not mourned for no one grieves you when you're still there. And, she thought, that is the darkest secret of them all--one she'd just come to understand. Did she want to grieve for herself? Could she say goodbye?

How do you say goodbye, especially to yourself. How can you think of yourself, and the person you'd planned to become, as gone?

Then her son laughed, the sound rising up above the din of the house. It was some TV show from the other room--Grover or Little Bear. Suddenly, in that moment, she knew she could say good bye and mourn, and she allowed slow tears to drop into her coffee. She knew then that it was okay to let go of her secrets too. That her secrets, that secret, had died with who she was, who she might have been. And she knew, as the tears fell, that everything she had been was a treasure, an inheritance she'd left herself. She was a new woman--of new hopes, new possibilities, new depth for pain and for joy--that was born when he was born.

And, she knew, her inheritance was more valuable than gold.

Oh, What a Beautiful Morning

It's dark in my head. Deep, dark hazy black. Driving water beats and prickles my scalp. The walls are closing in. I bang my shoulder--I should be warm, but it's cold, very cold. Pound, pound, pound. Why is there always pounding?

Blood. Blood, then pain. Why does my body know what's happening before my brain can register?  I can feel the sharp sting of warm blood run down my leg. It just begins to pool between my toes before it gets washed, swirled away. I open my eyes and watch my essence trickle away.

PoundPoundPoundPoundPound.

"MOM!!! Where's my home-reading? MOOMMM!!! MOOOOOMMMM!!!!!!!!!

Right.

Not Armageddon. Not the Apocalypse. Not even the Second Coming. It's my morning shower: shaving my legs (read: aggressively, though inadvertently, removing a 2-inch strip of skin off my left shin) with my eyes closed (because I'm too damn tired to open them) while the no-account-nose-miners hammer on the door screaming inane questions their father could answer were he not entirely and purposefully engrossed in his book and Bran Flakes.

Oh morning. How sweet you are.

I Got a What?!

I have 3 daughters. All amazing, and exhausting, in their own ways.

Emma's 20: tall, lanky, intense, funny, deeply intelligent, elegant, somewhat-nerdy, burbling with talent, and gratefully, away at university (I love her so much....when she's at school....and I send up a little prayer of thanks daily when she's away, "God? Thank you for creating universities in other cities. Thank you Lord. Amen.")

Bronwyn's 6: tall, sturdy, bright as a new penny, happy-go-lucky, and an accomplished tormentor....it's a regular occurrence in our house to hear, "Bronwyyyyynnnnnnn, quiiit it!!!!"

Then there's Isabelle. 17-year old Isabelle. If there were a prize for the World's Best Teenager, Isabelle would be in the top ten. She's, quite frankly, amazing. She is smart, funny, beautiful, sensitive, thoughtful, and she keeps the snide back-chat to a low roar. She's serious and sincere. And she's got the work ethic of a Trojan (warrior not condom). Isabelle's one significant weakness? She's got Woody Allen-sized anxiety and self-doubt. It's of epic proportions. When, in the fourth grade, the class was examining enhanced photos of dust mites, she went into a 2-day obsessive scratching-twitching-skin-scorching-showering-insomniac frenzy that nearly had us wrap her in plastic wrap and drop her on the curb. Or, the absolute tail-spin terror that accompanies each and every hair cut. So when September rolled around and her final year of high school was imminent the stress began to build.

The first couple of days seemed to go fairly well, but as the pressure started to build, Isabelle started to waver and quake. I shouldn't have been surprised when she walked through the back door 2 hours before school ended one day....but being me, I was. One look at her face told me something was dreadfully wrong. One word and she burst into tears.

She got to school that morning and her world literally began to turn upside down. As she lay on the bed in the spare room, sobbing and holding her pounding head, she told me: first, she'd lost her ability to understand what her friends and teachers were saying--everything was gibberish. Then she lost her ability to write, her normal tidy scrawl, becoming a indecipherable line-drifting mess. Finally, she lost her ability to form words. She bailed out of school, walked home, and fell apart.

So after I'd listened and internally fallen apart, I took her to the only place I could think of....the Emergency room.

We sat together waiting to see a doctor and Woody began to show his grizzled head. Isabelle began to stress about her homework....she had a Chemistry assignment, an English assignment, and an Art assignment. All due the next day. She rang her hands, and began to vibrate with anxiety. So I did what any decent, right-thinking parent would do......I did her homework.

Alright, I didn't do all her homework. I did her English homework (she blew off her Chemistry and Art homework with a note from me).

I wrote a great piece of work! 200 carefully chosen words. All painstakingly arranged into a grade 12 English assignment that rivalled some of my university writing. I loved it.....I mean, how could you not, right? I've been paid to write. I made a moderately unsuccessful career doing it.

So just after I'd finished Isabelle's English homework, and her CAT scan was complete, diagnosing a stress-related migraine (rather than the paralyzing stroke or brain tumour I'd been imagining) I was elated. We went home with a handful of Percocet, a plan for mediation classes, and what I knew to be a piece of grade 12 English homework that would go down in the annals of high school writing. They would frame it and ask if it could be used as a classic how-to-write example for generations to come. I tucked Isabelle in and all was well with the world.

Until she got her assignment back. I got an 8 out of 10. I got an 8 out of 10!!! 


I got an 8 out of 10--from a Social Studies teacher, a Social Studies teacher, mind, assigned to teach English--because, ..."while it was certainly the funniest, it lacked substance."


No framing, no gilding, no using my writing as an example for ripe, young minds yet to come, because, well, because I lack substance. And now my sweet, earnest daughter want me to attend parent-teacher interviews to meet my nemesis. To sit face to face, across a library table with the clearly uneducated, unappreciative, illiterate boob and make nice (okay, perhaps I'm being a bit harsh, but 8 out of 10??!!).

Nope. I'm going to take a pass on PT Interviews. I'm going to take the low road to sit home and sip scotch and ponder my skills--as a feeble parent, as a substance-less writer, and as a long-term grudge-holder. And just possibly, if I perform well enough, I'll give myself a 10 out of 10.

Thanks

It's harvest time here in Canada: farmers are working their land and filling their elevators, geese are fattening up for the long trip south, sweaters are being pulled from the top of cupboards, and turkeys are quaking and lamenting their no-fly status. This Monday is every Canadians Government-given right to give thanks.

Today, I feel grateful. I have healthy, bright, gorgeous kids who manage to get into reasonably manageable amounts of trouble (no crack, prostitution, human-trafficking, or teen pregnancies. Yet). A sweet, somewhat dense husband, who though losing his hair still has a great bum and enormous patience with me. A nice, albeit shockingly untidy house. And an extended family that I love (from a distance).

It's great to be thankful. I kinda like it. It feels good to feel good and for that alone I'm, well, I'm thankful. It's especially sweet because it's taken me so long to get here.

I had one of those childhoods. You know, one of those childhoods that is horrifying at the time (and a future financial boon for therapists), but comical in retrospect: young mother, skirt-chasing-embezzling-absent father, divorce, welfare and living in an 2-bedroom apartment, with my mother and 2 brothers, furnished with cardboard boxes, and a mattress on the living-room floor. Then remarriage and a new "father" who, though not a skirt-chasing embezzler, was a wife and child beater--ahhhh, the good old days.

What?!! Ghastly!! you say. What a terrible ghastly childhood! How can you make light of it? What kind of cold-hearted villain could say such things are comical! I know....I know, but if you can't laugh you're gonna cry, right? And as the original funny lady Carol Burnett said, "Comedy is tragedy plus time." And my own small tragedies have had enough time to adequately percolate to full blown belly laughs.

Then, I had one of those marriages. I married young, very young, as a direct result (so my therapist has helpfully and expensively pointed out) of my childhood. And I married the wrong man. Oh, did I choose badly: a controlling, angry, demanding, demeaning man. Well, 3 kids, some severely devastated self-esteem, a disastrously messy divorce, and a handful of years as a poor single-mom later I'm here in a thankful place.

And today I'm thankful for so many things: for family, for friends, for love, for joy, for warmth, for comfort, for safety. But believe it or not, I'm truly thankful for all the above. For all the heart ache and hardship. For all the loss and pain. For everything I learned and lived.

I am a woman tattered at the edges from life and age, but maybe, just possibly, there's a little bit of beauty in being care-worn. A small bit of grace in coming out alive and intact. Some small bit of refinement in hardship. I want my children to see that. To carry with them the small bit of knowledge that even through their bleakest moments, thankfulness can and does wait on the other side.

So happy Thanksgiving everyone. And when you stop to give thanks this weekend, don't forget to send up a small thought for the troubled-spots, and certainly, don't forget to giggle.

Never Let Them Tell You Complaining Doesn't Pay!

Evidently 2 years of whining, whinging, moaning, complaining, and writing about how down right hard and dirty (albeit rewarding) it is to be a mother has paid off. My little bitty blog has been nominated for a 2010 Canadian Blog Award!!!

Thanks Nominator, who ever you are! I'm honestly flattered and honoured!