I am MOM

I am MOM
If I knew then what I know now . . .
"I take a very practical view of raising children. I put a sign in each of their rooms: 'Checkout Time is 18 years.'"
Erma Bombeck

Monday, January 30, 2012

Sea Gall

Note - I am currently on a mom-break in California....

I raised my head slightly from my beach towel, where I lay sunning my back. I came nose-to-beak with a stunning seagull.  The seagull seemed to be sizing me up; I wasn't quite sure for what. 
I casually said, "Hello". 
His eye remained fixed on me as he raised one leg and stretched it back while spreading out his wing on the same side.  In yoga-ese, it was a half a Superman pose (though a bird hardly needed to pretend to be Superman). 
            "Jonathan, is that you?" I playfully asked. 
He cocked his head, as if he was trying to figure something out. (Like maybe who this Jonathan was; I just assumed that Jonathan Livingston Seagull was famous amongst his kind). 
            I marveled at my own bravado, as closeness with birds is not something I have ever been comfortable with.  But this feathery and gentle seeker was different; his eyes endeared me to him.  They were black as coal, but perfectly rimmed with red, as if someone had carefully painted on eyeliner pencil.  His head was white like cotton fluff and his long, pointed beak was a fiery orange dipped at the tip in black paint.  His feathers, three tones of grey leading from white to black, were long and soft and perfectly appointed.  I slowly reached for my camera, but even this careful movement disrupted our harmonious moment, and Jonathan flew off. 

            A short while later, as I spread out my picnic lunch of falafel, hummus and cut up veggies, he returned.  With the lure of food, he risked coming ever closer.  He circled and danced sideways, approaching and retreating - waiting, waiting.  I watched with a fascination that I had never before experienced in the presence of birds (hard to be fascinated when one falls face down at the swoop of a feathered-fiend).  Though he had gained my adoration, I could not part with even a morsel of my lunch.  It wasn't just that I knew it would be wrong, creating an imbalance in native ecology, as the signs in the area warned, I was deeply afraid.  Afraid as an infantryman might be at the sound of an air raid gun.  The call of this seagull, had I chosen to feed him, would have brought the whole flock upon me, as though I were their target. 
            This time, as I pulled out my camera, my handsome seagull posed.  And then, realizing that there was nothing else for us to share, he flew off again and blended in with the other scavengers on the beach, as if the moment had never happened.


Thursday, January 19, 2012

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Written January 9th, 2012

First of all, picture Andy Williams – handsome crooner from the ‘60’s sitting in a large velvet chair in front of a roaring fire place; notice the angelic children, dressed in their holiday finest dancing majestically around. Hear the well-tuned instruments of the orchestra as they lead exuberantly into these heartfelt lyrics.


It's the most wonderful time of the year
With the kids jingle belling
And everyone telling you "Be of good cheer"
It's the most wonderful time of the year
It's the hap-happiest season of all
With those holiday greetings and gay happy meetings
When friends come to call
It's the hap- happiest season of all

There'll be parties for hosting
Marshmallows for toasting
And caroling out in the snow
There'll be scary ghost stories
And tales of the glories of
Christmases long, long ago

It's the most wonderful time of the year
There'll be much mistletoeing
And hearts will be glowing
When loved ones are near
It's the most wonderful time
It's the most wonderful time
It's the most wonderful time
It's the most wonderful time of the year

I couldn’t agree more. 

Well, actually there are a few other times (of the year) that compare, but are hardly worth mentioning, like getting your wisdom teeth pulled out on Reality TV or running a marathon - without any shoes. 

But holidays really are a time about family and friends, food and cocktails – and lots of good cheer.  It is a time to shed the ‘uniform’ and kick up your heels in your holiday finest (okay, so I just switched from No Name sweats to Lululemon sweats – big deal).  It is a special time of year.  Name any other time of the year, when we are in such close proximity with loved ones, that we can see their smile lines – but not their smile, or we can hear a drop of sweat as it falls (from their body onto ours), or smell exactly what they ate for supper – last night, or find ourselves sandwiched between bodies so tightly that to move would cause an avalanche, that could affect the equilibrium of the whole country!

On the upside, I now have more empathy for Alice, the housekeeper, for The Brady Bunch, as well as some practical experience to put towards my psychology degree – should I ever choose to go that route.  Furthermore, my hands have never been softer, I use Palmolive, “It softens hands while you do the dishes”.

Truly, the holiday season is great, right?  All seventeen days of it!  For the most part, we have had people around all the time.  What a blast for the kids.  One day we had such a gay happy meeting with so many of the kids friends over, I felt like I was running a day camp.  I’m not afraid to admit that I felt sorry for the parents who dropped their kids off, and sauntered off, kid-less for hours – now what were they gonna do with themselves?  I invited them to stay, to help with dishes, or laundry, but they turned me down flat!

On the downside, through the seventeen days of internment – I mean holidays; I found myself bed-ridden part of days each week – and it wasn’t the mistletoeing that got me there!  I think the merriment simply got to me; either that, or it was the punch. The winds have been so high through this holiday season that first of all, I do wonder how Santa landed his sleigh, when runways across Western Canada were closed. We had weather warnings regularly for gusts greater than 90 km/hour.  I don’t know if that has any meaning to you, but let me give you some perspective, that means a lawn chair could take off from our back yard and land across the street in our neighbors picture window in under one second!  One day, we woke up and our house had been lifted up and moved two sub-divisions over.  What a bummer, the kids are going to have to switch schools.

But seriously, the headaches that we headache sufferers suffer from were intensified by the massive winds that blew through the days.  Now that doesn’t feel fair.  I do feel lucky though, because Ward had to work for a week of the holidays, giving me sole responsibility for the home front.  Oh, how I love to be in charge.  I felt like Captain Margaret Craig Eaton, who led the Canadian Women’s Army Corps in 1944, and like Nellie McClung, who together with the Famous Five took on British parliament contending that women could be “qualified persons” (I have been trying within my own circles to do the same for Mothers), and finally, like heroine Mary Dohey, who, in 1971, prevented a hijacker from doing any harm, by speaking gently to the armed man – although in our house, it turned out to be Laurèn, dressed up as the sword fighting cat in Puss ‘n Boots threatening to rid the house of all siblings. 

Today, such a sad day, the kids returned to school.  Whatever will I do without them?  I know one thing I am not going to do – get out of bed, or get dressed!  I was considering calling in room service, but I couldn’t reach the phone from my bed and didn’t want to exert myself.  Well, I for one cannot wait for the jingle-belling and hosting, toasting and roasting of the next MOST WONDERFUL TIME OF THE YEAR.

Happy Holidays!

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

The birth of Jesus Christ



We had somehow made it through the Christmas season without much in the form of religious tradition.  This was, somewhat unusual for us, but not surprising, given the fact that we were, due to a series of events, without a church home.  So, we missed the build up of Jesus’ birthday that normally happens through participating in Advent activities at church and culminates in the Christmas pageant.  In fact, we missed the build-up to Christmas entirely, as we chose to do most of our shopping on-line.  We simply woke up one day, and lo-and-behold, it was Christmas. 

 It is amazing to me, how my kids wait with excited anticipation for the last day of school, for their older siblings to finish University exams and re-join the family, and for the day that they can do nothing, hang out all day, and simply be together.  For our family, and I suspect – most families, the excitement soon wears off!  A few days after Christmas had come and gone, after the leftovers have been scraped from their plastic holding cells and after the nine-hundredth round of I’m bored, what can we do – my kids were driving each other crazy.

And so it was, when Faven and I were enjoying a rare quiet moment together amidst the fray, that her brother pushed her a bit too far.  Christmas holidays are probably one of Yohannes’ favorite times of the year, as there are simply more people around, and being a gamely extrovert, he revs up, like a racecar at the Grand Prix.  Given his propensity for socialization, he will bump, push and prod anyone and everyone who is within his radar to play with him – or at the very least, to notice him.  He was relentless in his pursuit of Faven, and she told him twice to go away.  Asking Yohannes to go away is like putting cheese in a mousetrap.  The third time that he came towards Faven and I, she turned and screamed at him with the intensity of a football coach running drills - “Yohannes…JESUS CHRIST!”

Between her utterance and the tornado of words that flew out of Ward’s mouth there was not even the thinnest puff of breath.  Faven was visibly shaken.  As her face contorted, revealing her irrepressible emotions, she looked at me and asked, “What’d I did?”

I made a hasty attempt to settle her down, while somehow conveying the seriousness of the situation.  I explained that saying, Jesus Christ, in that way was a swear word.  She tried to tell me that she didn’t know – and yet, she used it so perfectly inappropriately, that I had my doubts.  It was likely that she did not understand where on the scale of ‘bad words’ it sat.  Her tears were most likely based on the reaction that she got from her dad.  However, she needed support, and in fact all of the kids needed to understand why dad had reacted so passionately, so quickly. 

Faven cried and shook for the next twenty minutes, without moving from her chair at the kitchen island.  Everyone returned to what they were doing prior to the infraction and eventually, supper was served.  I had to physically move Faven over to the dinner table, where she continued to cry and moan.  As she started to calm down we began to talk about who Jesus is, what significance he has to Christians, and why screaming his name in anger at another individual was wrong.  And then we shifted to talking about making mistakes, and the fact that we all make mistakes.  We were able to name this event as a mistake.  We were able to talk about how some mistakes are smaller – and how parents react differently to smaller mistakes than bigger ones.  Ward apologized for scaring Faven and yet he believed that she learned something larger for the intensity of his reaction.  Then, just to be clear, we talked about all of the other bad words that are not allowed, or considered inappropriate.

Faven recovered and so did we.

The very next day, Faven, Yohannes and I were driving to pick Lauren up at the ranch where she goes to horse club.  Upon entering and leaving the ranch, you have to open and close a few gates.  I had just passed through the final gate and clambered out to close it.  As I took a step toward the gate – the van started to roll past me, picking up speed.  In breathtaking alarm I uttered, “Jesus Christ!”

Pause for a moment and think about that.  Honestly, do they have a comedy team in heaven writing this stuff??  And are they all leaning back on a comfy cloud laughing their heads off right now?

I swiftly slid back into the driver’s seat, and realized that I had put the van into reverse instead of park!  Both kids were completely speechless.  We drove up the hill and parked the van and got out.  Yohannes took my hand as we walked through the fields to catch up to the kids that were out on a sleigh ride. 

He gently said to me, “Mom, you said that word that Faven did.”
“Yes,” I humbly admitted, “I did.”
Like the gentle observer that he is, he said, “I guess even you make mistakes.”
“Yes I do”, I replied.

And so, we went through the entire Christmas season without intentionally subscribing to the doctrines of Jesus Christ’s birth; but it found us anyway.