We are the Great Hope

Posted on 5/3/2011 by cheesefairy

Yesterday, Canada had an election. Maybe you heard about it. Because I am on the West Coast, and the votes started being counted on the East Coast while we were still able to vote, I had to wait until 7:00 pm to hear the man on the radio say We are projecting a Conservative Majority Government. (USians, that’s like Bush winning. Again.)

The hour between 6 and 7 was not especially pleasant and not because of the election. It was unpleasant because of ordinary, regular family life. Because the hour between 6 and 7 is pretty universally unpleasant in houses containing small children. So when the man on the radio, with one short sentence, crushed all hope of a kinder, gentler, more socialist government, I really did feel ill. Sure, it was only a projection, and the West coast results hadn’t been counted and anything can happen. But it doesn’t, usually.

I have learned over the years, watching Gordon Campbell — our premier who drove drunk, got caught, apologized and continued leading the province — win year after year, not to hope. I have learned, watching the people of Canada twice (now three times) vote for a person who doesn’t respect the rights of everyone in the country equally, a person who was found in contempt of parliament and who still had the gall to blame others for the election we were just put through, not to hope.

I surround myself with people who think like me, forgetting that me and 20 people do not a majority make. (Nor does our current electoral system, but I will leave it to someone else to rant about that) There are a whole lot more people in the country who either don’t think like me and my friends, or who do, but don’t vote.

Anyway. I always vote, but I don’t often hope. I thought the Conservatives were going to win again and I even wrote a big long post last week about why I thought that. (Hint: because the Liberal campaign was ass.) But over the weekend, as Jack Layton’s support surged and it looked like there might be enough people mobilized, voting at advance polls, nattering on about how we should all vote. Vote. Vote. I let myself hope. I let myself think, for a couple of days, that the tide was changing and we were going to kick that bum out of office.

So it was sad, on two levels, to hear that not only did the bum not get kicked out of office, but he got more votes than last time. Even though I was right. I like being right but not about stuff like this.

Saint Aardvark and I sat on the couch, drowning our sorrows and tweeting and cracking dumb jokes. We cheered as we watched our MP, Fin Donnelly, win his riding, and we marveled as we watched Jack Layton and the NDP take an unprecedented number of seats across the country, making them a sizable and formidable official opposition. We cheered as Elizabeth May won her riding and a seat as the first Green Party member of parliament. And we went to bed.

I expected to wake sour and miserable. I expected to feel dejected and cranky. But I don’t.

I was in the bathroom and the kids were bickering and I called out, “Remember to be kind to each other.” And I realized: that’s it. All we can do is be kind to each other.

Because we are the hope. We are the people who will, along with a very strong opposition party, continue to watch our leader like a hawk, and call him on his bullshit when he offends, even if he doesn’t apologize (and he won’t, probably). We are the people who will write letters and start campaigns and organize protests when we need to. We are the people who have enough to help the poor, the sick, and the desperate. We can volunteer, and continue to make our art, and help old ladies across the street, and listen to the old guy at the bus stop for five minutes if it makes him feel better. We can pick up the slack where our government leaves off. We can live in their house and follow their rules, but they can’t take our phones away. They can’t ground us. All we can control is what we do.

It is still our country. We make it what it is. Tomorrow I might be cynical again but just for today I feel hopeful.

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That New Bed Smell

Posted on 4/28/2011 by cheesefairy

Up until this past Monday, Fresco was sleeping in a crib. Yes. My three year old was in a crib. I know that it makes intellectual sense to leave a child in its preferred enclosure until it is ready to move to another, and Fresco showed no signs of needing alternate sleeping arrangements, but there was still a dark, shameful corner of my soul that wailed periodically, That child is too big for a crib!

(Who is it in that corner of my soul? Is it A Judgmental Old Lady I Met Once? A Talk Show Host? That Bossy Child-free Man on the Bus? Hard to say.)

Back in November when he wasn’t sleeping at nap time, I left Fresco in his crib one too many days and he figured out how to climb out. Which led to me giving up and rocking him to sleep and then he got caught up on all his sleep and once he was re-adjusted to life as a well-slept human, he never again attempted to climb out.

Sidenote: So yes, it was a REGRESSION not a permanent change. He started napping regularly again. Parents of 2.5 year olds, note. The not-sleeping is perhaps not permanent. I was pretty convinced it was permanent, which is the surest sign of a full-on regression.

When we moved the kids into one room over the weekend, Fresco fell in love with Trombone’s bed. Which Trombone has been in since he was 18 months old because we needed the crib for the baby.

I need my own bed, said Fresco.
Sure, I said, with no intention of changing the status quo because when we moved the rooms around we also took away the safety gates that until recently kept the children penned and put. Without the gates and without the crib railings, well, they can go Anywhere They Want. I am not comfortable with that! I have no door on my bedroom!

After two days of But I really need a bed of my own and after Saint Aardvark witnessed a harrowing attempt by both children (working together! Yay boys!) to rescue a water cup from the crib – which attempt involved dangling, climbing and balancing on the edge of a rocking chair – we caved and went to IKEA for a bed.

We brought it home and assembled it and then it was nap time. I had been in the habit of sitting in the rocking chair next to the crib while Fresco fell asleep but he waved me on. You can go, he said, curled up under his blanket, eyes squeezed shut. So I came downstairs and waited a few minutes to make sure and then I put my shoes on to go get some …

… trip trip trip down the stairs he came. I’m done my nap! he announced cheerfully.
Hell no, you’re not, we replied. Go back upstairs.

To my eternal shock, he did. And there he stayed, asleep as the day is long, for two hours. TWO HOURS. The child has not had a two hour nap in months.

The following day, I tucked him in and left him and he slept for 90 minutes.

The following following day, I tucked him in and he cried because Trombone was supposed to sleep too and Trombone had left the room. But he still, eventually, went to sleep for two hours.

“So do you think there is some kind of, like, toxic chemical in the mattress that puts you to sleep?”
“Or poppies maybe?”
“Maybe.”
“Huh.”
“Oh well.”

Which is why, bittersweetly, today I am skipping his bed nap. I am breaking my own top 5 rules of parenting, #4: Don’t Fuck with Nap Time.

I know. I scarcely believe it myself.

We had a late lunch after a superfun play date this morning. We have to go to gymnastics at 3:30 and if he had gone to sleep any
later than 1:30 I would have probably ended up waking him (rule #2: Don’t Wake A Sleeping Child) and then the tides of hell would come washing ashore and burn me with an afternoon of grumpy toddler so I am choosing option B, which is put him in the stroller to gymnastics and walk while Trombone is in class. This features two bonuses: 1. I get a nice, quiet, brisk walk 2. Maybe to the liquor store.

The best, by which I mean, ‘what the hell am I thinking?’ part is that today, after lunch and after I read two stories, he said, OK I am going up to my bed now. And I had to say, No, today you stay downstairs.

Which means that tomorrow, come nap time, I will have to work twice as hard for the nap and I will hate myself for today.

On the bright side, my father-in-law just sent me a recommendation for a $10 red wine.

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Focus

Posted on 4/26/2011 by cheesefairy

I read once about how children learn physical stuff and mental stuff at separate times, ie: if your child is walking and can climb to the top of the bookshelf while you are taking five minutes in the bathroom, s/he might not be speaking in full sentences yet. Likewise if your child is reading at 18 months s/he might not be walking yet. Because the brain has to focus on either physical or intellectual pursuits, not on both.

I have no idea where I read that idea (or fact?) but I have retained it. When Trombone was in-arms and I was on maternity leave I read a lot of stuff. Books, internet, blogs, newspapers, anything parenting-related was soaked up. My own brain, of course, was occupied with coming to terms with parenthood and the general WTFery of infants so I couldn’t possibly retain anything more than “this makes sense and applies to my situation so I will henceforth believe it.”

This is actually not a post about children.

We just finished a four-day weekend, which we kicked off with a radical re-organization of the middle floor of our townhouse. The kids have been in separate rooms and we wanted one of those rooms back so we moved them into one room. The details of this are tedious and extremely dusty so I will spare you, save to say that we moved a lot of furniture, recycled a lot of paper and donated a lot of toys to charity. At the end of the day there was one bedroom and one playroom / guest room / spare room.

I sat down – finally – to catch up on my internet reading and maybe write a blog post or work on a story for my writing group but I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t focus on something so small and intangible as words. I just wanted to keep sweeping and vacuuming and throwing things out and dusting and washing windows and throwing more things out and

…relax. I said to myself.

I can’t! I said back.
Have some wine.
My head hurts.
Then go to bed.
OK but I just wanna…
Leave it! Go to bed!

I tweeted some and then went to bed.

All weekend, the same thing happened. Here I had all this time to sit and write (I mean not a LOT of time but more than usual) so I would think about reading or writing and — I just didn’t feel like it. I was not at all as excited about putting words on the page as I was about scrubbing the grime out of our window screens. And then I felt bad about being more excited about grimy window screens than about the act of creation. The thing I love to do. Except when I don’t.

Two things I reminded myself of to assuage the guilt:

1. With writing (and, to a certain extent, parenting) I am never finished. I can write draft after draft and it will still not be done. Until I put it somewhere out of sight and then it passes for done until I read it again. Reorganizing a bedroom: when you’re done you’re done. Obviously I would prefer the task that gives me a sense of accomplishment.

2. Repetitive, monotonous, redundant, useless (because it will all be filthy and disorganized again in a week when this fit passes) tidying is a rest for the intellectual brain. Physical activity gives the head a little holiday. The problem is getting back to work. Stopping the movement and sitting back down at the desk.

I’m back at the desk.

(Fresco took of me while I was typing. Yes, I type so fast I’m blurry!)

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A Thoroughly Short Post

Posted on 4/20/2011 by cheesefairy

Fresco. You are three today. 3.

You weight 35 lbs and measure 38 inches and you are 3.

Your older brother has been needling you for weeks, as brothers do.

“Why don’t you try some Parmesan cheese?” he will say, “it is so tasty! You will like it!”
“Maybe when I’m three,” you answer.

Except you say “free.” Until recently, when he started to read words, your brother also said his “th”s as “F”s. Now he is correcting himself. So you are correcting yourself too.

“Try some ham,” he says. “You would like it. It’s salty.”
“Um,” you reply, “when I’m fr-fr-THHHree.”

“When do you think you will use the potty?” he says. (He didn’t get the memo about NOT TALKING ABOUT POTTIES.)
“Um, when I’m THHHthree.”

Good morning Fresco! You are three! I have purchased eight pounds of ham for you and your potty awaits.

You are a boy of such bluster and boist that I am genuinely lost when you panic. You are scared of bugs and it surprises me every time. I think you are joking. You have been running to keep up and shouting to be heard since approximately 14 days after you were born. It is shocking to see you crumple in tears because of a fruit fly. I understand it. But it is shocking.

You want what your brother has. You will never have it. You will always have what you have.

What you have: a wicked sense of humour and an inborn testa dura (hard head), which, combined with the resilience of a younger brother who must try, try, try again because the odds are in your favour that someone will tire of you asking and just give you the toy you want already, makes you a force. A Force.

You have a keen dramatic ability. You will calmly and carefully position yourself on the hard cement and then wail about your outrageously bad luck, so that it *looks* to all the world like you fell there in your anguish. Someday you will understand April Fool’s Day and I am stocking up on gin as we speak.

What is most infectious about you is your joy. You kiss and hug and love everything. You grin as though your face would break. You exclaim. Now that you have words and the ability to temper your volume, the exclaiming is wonderful instead of soul-numbing. We’re glad we stuck with you, because to hear you say, “I’m blowing BUBBLES and they’re all RAINBOWY and I LOVE THE BUBBLES I WILL KISS THEM! OH! I got bubble on my NOSE!” (from outside) is to truly understand what happiness is.

To know you is to love you. And I do. Happy birthday!

I Am Iron Man

(as always, the advice to turn down your volume applies to videos of Fresco)

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Bloom

Posted on 4/18/2011 by cheesefairy

Until one day last week, the naked magnolia tree still had one brown leaf, dry as old skin, cracker-crunchy, pressed right up against the living room window. Every time there was a storm, I would watch the leaf closely for movement but it was pretty much glued to the tree. It was not leaving.

“It’s still there!” I would comment every few days over breakfast. “Dumb tree. Dumb leaf.”

One morning Saint Aardvark got up from his chair and moved over to the window.
“Here, why don’t I just take it off.”

“No!” I said, “It has to fall off on its own. It’s the tree’s business, not our business.”

You know? If the tree wants to grow and be all leafy and can’t even get it together to shed all its leaves in a timely fashion? Who am I to help nature along. It’s like that story about the baby sea turtles. Don’t help the sea turtles!

A few days later, the leaf was gone. I asked SA, did you take off that last, brown leaf that I hate? And he said, Mmm mmm. And waved his hand around because — oh suddenly his mouth was full of important food. Sure.

Speedy magnolia. In the past few days, despite the weather being cold and snow-rainy, I have seen the buds on the tree turn to blossoms and the blossoms start to thicken. I am lost in the past six weeks of sickness and have no idea what day is what anymore; my to-do lists are ignored and then flagrantly recycled and I’m pretty sure there are woodland creatures living in my hair, but the tree knows what day it is, what week, what month.

It is magnolia season. Showtime.

I say: it feels colder than last year, there’s been more rain than ever, surely, we’re having elections again and the outcome will be the same, it’s all so useless, I can’t get 15 minutes to myself, and I only want 10, there is no progress, only our feet trudging around and around in circles, when the rain stops we go to the playground and we come home with viruses and the rain starts again and we stare at each other and nothing changes.

The tree says: it’s almost time to bloom. This is it. A year has passed. Everything I have done until now makes this moment. Everything I do after this moment leads to the next one. I don’t think. I just bloom.

The Reverb folks have been sending monthly prompts to willing participants since the beginning of 2011. The prompt for April is “What is blossoming?”

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