My Whirlwind Week of Non-Perfection

I was just going through our photos for the past week and realized how fortunate it is that I am the kind of person who does not lose her shit when things don’t go her way.

The photos, well, they’re haphazard because we bought a new camera. There was nothing wrong with the old camera, except that the little flip-top lid that held the batteries in fell off so we taped it shut with masking tape (couldn’t find the duct tape that day) and then, we were dealing with that and planning to do so for a while when somehow the display on the camera got smashed in so it looked like a Laser Pink Floyd show, which is not so convenient when you don’t have a viewfinder on the camera: “oh maybe I’m taking a picture of this adorable baby or maybe I’m taking a picture of a cat’s ass – guess I’ll have to wait until I’ve uploaded the photos to find out” and then it took us a week to buy the new camera because have you ever gone shopping with a shouty toddler?

It doesn’t take long before you are blushing your way out of the store in shame.

Saturday afternoon last, SA’s parents said, “go, do some shopping, we’ll stay here in case the kids wake up” so we went to London Drugs and bought a new camera and I love it, it’s grand, but I didn’t have any time to think about how to use it before the birthday party, Trombone’s, which we held on Sunday in the park with a couple of friends and a lot of family.

I had originally planned the party for Saturday but the Weather Gods said no, Saturday doesn’t look good, so I rescheduled for Sunday and then on Sunday holy HELL did the wind blow. Wow. We had these paper tablecloths on the picnic tables and they were wheezing with the effort of staying on the table, beneath the mustard and relish procured especially for the barbeque. We froze our asses off, only a few of us having brought sweaters or jackets. I just kept hoping for the best and thinking warm thoughts, which had a predictable Non-Effect on the actual weather.

Fresco had a bit of a cold, one that didn’t seem dire at the time but he was, nonetheless, underslept and whiny. Wrapped in blankets and strangely sourced sweaters and sweatshirts, we partied like only doting adults can and there was face painting and there were hot dogs and later, much too much later, cake and finally presents, doomed only to be enjoyed days later. Then everyone exploded from sugar and no napping and went home.

Monday arrived and I took my charges up to the park to meet up with the impeccably organized mo-wo, the dapper p-man and their sweet, socialized children who tried playing with Trombone while he wandered off and demonstrated his bubble wand to a small child and the child’s rapt father, then came back crowing, “I made some new friends,” and I refrained from saying, “because you ignored the ones that came here to meet us!” all the while Fresco dipping his homousy carrots in the grass and my sunscreen wore off and lookatthat it’s 12 noon no wonder I’m so hot, did I shower today? A thoughtful gift, which now lies comfortably on Trombone’s elephant pillow, was given in honour of his birthday and we traipsed home, while he did his now-familiar “That was fun! Let’s do it again!” playdate post-mortem which confuses the heck out of me seeing as he has usually spent the entire time ignoring his playdate playmates.

Tuesday, filled with promise; will we swim today with granddad and grandma? surely, son, we will, except oh, the pool is closed for lessons and your younger brother has developed a wheezy cough and your own nose is suddenly a tap so why don’t you head to the park for a swing and some ice cream, scratch that, the stand is closed, ah well, better days tomorrow, which is your birthday after all.

Then, today. The wheezy-coughed younger brother up at 4 am, then 5, some promising gifts on waking and then cinnamon toast, which wasn’t what he thought it would be (don’t ask ME what he thought it would be) then over to the grandparents’ for the annual Canada Day / Trombone’s Birthday Hamburger Party where we all ate hamburgers except Trombone who ate crackers and homous and Fresco who ate soup and cherries. During naptime I pulled out the perfect gift, which I had found the day previous at Superstore: a Tonka Dumptruck Flashlight Whoozit, where the flashlight shines into a motion control sensor and it makes the dump truck drive and dump its load, I mean is that PERFECT? considering he wanted a firetruck flashlight months ago, remember? I was so delighted to find it except when we took it out of its swanky packaging, it didn’t work. In the dark of the garage, it sometimes worked, but only half the time and the other half it just sat there, obstinate, staring at us. Finally, SA and I having agreed we would repackage it and return to the store because a $20 dump truck that doesn’t do anything a $5 dump truck can’t do is not a dump truck we need, he discovered the secret – the demonstration mode for the dump truck involved wires connecting the flashlight and the truck so in the store, the light appeared to make the truck move but in fact, the motion was controlled by the wires connecting them. Once the wires were removed when the packaging was discarded, the motion sensor itself was nothing but a cruel joke.

Angry at Tonka, we filmed a demonstration video that SA intends to upload somewhere and email to some cranky consumer show as well but in the meantime we had to put the perfect gift back in the trunk of the car and sure, Trombone doesn’t know any better, he’s happy with his Yo Gabba Gabba! spinoff book (yes, I bought one) but I did, I knew, and man, it chafed me.

Back to the photos from our new camera. Sometime last week I discovered that the settings on the camera were such that I was taking photos at the maximum resolution, 10 megapixels, which creates a file size of approximately 2000 Gigantos and so this morning I took a moment and reset the camera so that we were taking more reasonable, screen-shot sized photos. The uploading only took a few minutes instead of an hour and as the past few days scrolled by me quickly, I could see that there had been many moments that had fallen short of my expectations and yet I did not feel less than satisfied. So many moments I would have been justified in railing against. The snotty noses. The Windy Party. Trombone’s refusal to wash his hands after using the toilet. Tantrums and my own overgrown hair in my face and the shirt I just bought shrank in the wash. Beneath the frenzy, though, in the photos, there is a happiness on display, one that would have been impossible to plan or anticipate.

Maybe I am just too busy these days to stop and dwell on the imperfections of my life, on how my best laid plans are nothing but a ball of dandelion fluff in the wind. Or perhaps it is what I have always known but forgotten at times: perfection is not only achievable when reality matches my imagination but is also in plain view when I shrug my shoulders, smile anyway, take a deep breath, allow a third cupcake.

It is in the gaps between schedules. In un-plans. In the sunlight streaming through the car’s windshield while the children laugh in the back seat. In the sudden feeling of peace, the origin of which you don’t question. There it is, right there. Perfection.