Valentines Revisited

February 8, 2012 by ·

This is something I wrote last year and re-posting it feels like a bit of a cheat. But in my defence:

  1. Mama Kat told us to write a poem for our valentines.
  2. My blog was quite new at the time, and it seems reasonable to bring it back to see the light of day.
  3. I like it.

It’s one of my favourite posts, and one I don’t think I could better, so here you go:

 

In the eyes of the boy, I am everything. I know everything. Can do everything (except build snowmen). My kisses heal wounds. My breath in the night scares away the darkness. My hugs bring him home.

I carried him then, gave him life. Nourished his body with mine. Carry him still.

To me he can say, “I love you, too” even when I haven’t said it first, because sometimes love is unspoken.

In the eyes of the boy I am perfect.

In the eyes of the man, I am the other half. The other half of one whole.

I offer what I can and he takes it, adds to it and makes it more.

If I need help I can ask for it and he gives it. Sometimes I can’t ask for it and he gives it anyway.

I have said, “I’m sorry.” And he has said, “There are no conditions.”

In the eyes of the man I am perfect in my imperfection.

To me, the boy is life and light and lilting laughter. He is me and he is the man: he is the poignancy of potential. He’s also his own person and don’t you dare mess with that.

He is perfect.

To me, the man is the source of much of the best of the boy. He is more – much more – than I knew when I met him. He is my patience and my strength. He is rational when I’m not. He laughs when I can’t.

He is love, and love is perfect.

I’m lucky to have them, these two. My two.

Valentines.

Mama’s Losin’ It

Filed Under: Happy things, Love letters · Tagged With: ,

A Serving of Working Mom Guilt, Please

January 23, 2012 by ·

I’m struggling tonight.

I’ve started a new job, which I love, but I’m playing the Working Mom Guilt Game, which I hate. And tonight I lost.

Last night, after a fun and busy weekend, I stood at the kitchen counter to make my lunch for today. Connor came over and asked me what I was doing. “Making my lunch,” I said. “Why?” he asked. “Because I have to go to work tomorrow.”

And then came the face.

“I thought you didn’t have to go to work every day.”

I hate that face.

We’ve had this conversation several times in the last couple of weeks. He wants me to play with him in the morning or sit with him while he eats his breakfast. I want to do that too. I love mornings with him. It’s quiet, I’m not thinking about all the things I have to get done, and it’s just me and him. But weekday mornings are too short, and more often than not lately he isn’t even up when I leave for work, which steals at least half an hour I’d otherwise get to spend with him. When he is up I inevitably get, “Do you have to go to work today? [sad face]” So as we approach weekends I get to do the “Guess what?!” thing and tell him I don’t have to work. We talk about the things we’re going to do and he gets that excited, I-get-my-mama face.

I love that face.

What I don’t love is the other end of the day when I come home after a day—preceded too often by too little sleep—from a new job that makes my brain tired. When I have spent all day in an office full of people, talking and laughing and working and learning, and my inner introvert just wants to sit in my quiet bedroom by myself for a while.

3-year-olds don’t let you sit in your bedroom by yourself for any length of time. At least mine doesn’t.

So I come home after working to a little guy who wants his mom to play with him, which, as the last thing I feel like doing, induces massive guilt.

Working Mom Guilt.

I’m not here when I want to be and when I am here I spend too much time wanting something else. It sucks.

dinosaur-at-the-zoo

This is what I missed while I was at work today.

This is especially tough right now because I’m working a slightly longer day than I used to and I work farther away, both of which slice into my momming time. And he’s going to bed later, which slices into my me time.

Nobody’s winning here, people. (And don’t even get me started on all the blog reading and commenting I’m not doing.)

Maybe I’ll get used to it. Maybe we all will. Maybe we won’t. In any case, tonight my working mom guilt came with a side order of the Monday tireds and some irrational, the-toddler-is-chewing-too-loud annoyance and I had to leave the room to take a deep breath.

My mama mug spilleth over, and I don’t know what to do about it.

 

Filed Under: Conversations with Connor, Hard things, Motherhood · Tagged With: , , , ,

Words of Winter

January 17, 2012 by ·

I did ask for it, so I can’t complain. We were waiting for winter, and winter is here.

It got cold on Sunday (-18 degrees C which is 0 degrees F, or slightly lower I think) but we braved the elements. Connor has a new sled and it’s a hit. Thursday and Friday’s outings, by all reports, were great. Cold in a refreshing way but not cheek-bitingly cold.

Sunday was cheek-bitingly cold.*

We went out anyway. Got bundled up—which, for a kid who generally opts to be naked, is quite a feat—and trekked to the park.

He pulled the sled on the way there.

And his excitement was written all over his face.

toddler with sled

And that’s a memory worth capturing.

*(Although, at -30C/-22F the last couple of days have been worse. Whose ideas was this again?)

 

And speaking of new things, I’m on Just.Be.Enough today talking about my new views.

Filed Under: Happy things · Tagged With: , , , ,

Tick-Tock Goes the Clock

January 16, 2012 by ·
clock

Image credit: Caucas on Flickr

I lie beside him as the early afternoon sun streams through the blinds. As I wait for him to fall asleep every wiggle-squirm feels like a tick-tock of the clock.

Will he sleep? I want him to nap so we can go on our planned adventure later this afternoon. I need him to nap so I can get a few things done.

The thought crosses my mind—as it has done so many times before—that it would be so nice if he were one of those kids who will fall asleep without my staying with him until he’s out.

But he’s not one of those kids.

He wiggle-squirms again and the clock tick-tocks.

I hear the dishwasher running downstairs and I think of my semi-clean kitchen. I make a mental list of what I want to try to accomplish while he’s asleep so another weekend doesn’t go by without getting anything done, leaving chaos to reign.

Tick-tock goes the clock.

The wiggle-squirms start to slow, and I hear the familiar deep breathing that’s a sign of coming sleep. Everything in me starts to slow, too, and the sound of the dishwasher fades into an awareness of quiet.

Just when I think he’s asleep, he takes my arm and pulls it around him, then pulls it around some more so he’s wrapped tightly. This is going to be a hard one to get out of without waking him, I think.

In the quiet room, awash in bright sunlight, I feel his warmth. I sense his breathing. I feel his quiet.

The tick-tock of the clock comes back, but this time it’s a different awareness. Not of things to do and bathrooms to clean but of passing days, a growing boy and the fleeting nature of this time when he’ll let me lie with my arms around him while he sleeps.

So I lie there a little longer, cherishing his small-boy softness and his warmth and his peacefulness.

I want to remember this.

So I write it down.

Filed Under: Happy things, Motherhood · Tagged With: , , ,

Break a Leg

January 9, 2012 by ·

Near the western edge of Calgary stands a legacy. From a distance you can easily see a tall tower, standing at the edge of a hill. Jutting out from it are several ramps, whose purpose the tower supports. The slope of the hill is dotted with Ts, row after row of them with a function that’s hard to discern from a distance. The entire hill is snow-covered, glistening white, especially at night when the lights flood the landscape making the whole place shine out across the city.

High atop the hill, a spot of colour on a stark background, stands a Canada flag.

Canada-Olympic-Park

Canada Olympic Park.

This park was the home of several events—bobsleigh, ski jumping, some skiing—during the 1988 Winter Olympics. It has always been there, visible from so many places in the city, yet I’d never been up there. Until yesterday.

As part of our explorations while we eagerly await winter, we ventured up to the park to watch a freestyle skiing competition. COP, as it’s affectionately known, is a popular destination for skiers who don’t want to head too far out of the city to get a few runs in. It’s a great place for lessons, or so my husband says, as this is where he learned to ski.

One of the first things I noticed at my new job was one of the digital signs in the building promoting a family ski night at the park in mid-January. “We should go!” I thought, and then thought better of it. I haven’t skied for years. Years. I dread to think what the experience would be like now. (Or maybe I just dread making a fool of myself in front of new co-workers.)

We’ve tossed around the idea of going. It’s cheap, so if I fall flat on my face I can always head inside and attempt to swallow my pride along with some hot chocolate and an apple turnover. It also seems like a good option for introducing Connor to skiing. But, oh lordy, it just seems like such an undertaking.

And then, Saturday afternoon. There we were, all three of us out together walking the dog. We crossed the field near our house, dodging stubborn chunks of snow determined to last until the next snowfall. I chased Connor, then raced him, several times over, to toddler-selected finish lines. The air was brisk – refreshing but not finger-freezing cold. It felt…alive. Vibrant.

Unprompted, my husband brought up the ski night. He seemed hesitant, just as I had been. But then my word for the year came back to me.

We could choose not to go, I said, and say we’ll do it another time. But when? We could easily end up living here for years, never doing any of the things I’m looking forward to so much. Shouldn’t we go now, when the opportunity is there, accessible and inexpensive?

So we’re going.

Wish me luck. Or, at the very least, that I don’t break a leg.

Filed Under: Happy things · Tagged With: , , , ,
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