Mothering Full Circle

He's two and a half. He has most of his teeth by now. Maybe all of them. I'm not sure because I haven't ventured to put my fingers in his mouth to count. He's biting. A lot. Mostly me. I try to follow his reasoning - is he mad? bored? excited? frustrated? He's all of those things. Often simultaneously. Two year olds have a lot of feelings.

I envision myself to be the mom who stops everything to have a genuine chat about what's causing the biting. We will get to the bottom of it. No yelling. No crying. We'll hug it out and laugh about it. But, well, you know - toddlers. Lots of people are giving me lots of good advice. Some of it is working.

But what do I really need? What I really need is a break. A real one. Not for five minutes and not for an hour. But for several days in a row. And that's the thing with parenting isn't it? The hardest job in the world. The most important job in the world. But if it's a job where are the vacation days? Everyone needs a vacation now and then don't they?

And that's probably why grandparents were invented. Those wondrous people who have been there. Who get it. And who aren't too exhausted running after their own children to run after yours.  So I pack up the boy and head "home" to the place that really isn't home anymore but always sorta will be. He's thrilled of course. Bobo and Ba's house would rival Disney World in his eyes. If he knew what Disney World was.

My parents have probably the world's best couch for lounging. You really shouldn't ever sit on it if you have any plans for the rest of the day. As deep as a single bed it seduces naps from even the most ardent non-napper. My body sinks into its embrace and before long I'm curled on my side and a blanket mysteriously appears to cover me from head to toe. In the distance I hear my son yell "Again Ba! Again!" My father, the one with arthritis in his knees, is running around the room with a green table cloth fastened at his neck as a make-shift cape. Dun-dun-da-da! Mac squeals with delight. I roll over.

I wake from my nap to the smell of Mom's potato leek soup simmering on the stove. Mac is in the kitchen by her side. His little body is up at her level thanks to the aid of a kitchen chair under his feet. He's "helping." Which, I know, means he's slowing down the whole process. But I don't think she minds. I pretend to keep sleeping.

Three days pass and I've had my fill of soup. A whole double batch mostly on my own. The soup and the couch and the mothering. They've all done their work on my soul and I'm renewed. I hold my boy on my lap and stroke his hair. I drink in his scent and kiss his cheek. A few days of being mothered and I'm ready to mother again.

We linger for a moment at the door as we say our goodbyes - my mother and me. I'm about to thank her for all that she's done when she beats me to the punch.

"Thank-you for coming." Her eyes are wet and she reaches out for a hug. "It's been so nice having you here to mother." Funny how things come full circle. I know there will be a day in the future when I'll yearn so badly for an opportunity to mother my grown son instead of yearning for an opportunity to take a break from it.

I laugh a little. "Thank-you," I reply. "I really needed this." And she smiles. Because she knows. She's been there too.

"My Dad"

This new acquisition of language is the coolest thing to watch. The nouns are the easy part. He learned them quickly and only needs to hear a new person, place, or thing once before it is committed to memory. The verbs and the adjectives are following quickly behind.  It's not the kind of thing you teach, really. You just talk and hope that some of it sinks in but you never really know when it will. Until it has. And that's such a cool moment.

Mac lives in Ottawa with my wife and me but his dad lives in New York City. At two and half years old he has seen his Dad a dozen times or so. For the last year he has understood Dad as a noun. That guy who comes to visit every few months, the one with the scruffy face and the phone filled with videos of cats and horses on demand, his name is Dad. And to my toddler he's a pretty stellar guy. His visits produce donuts. And he lies on the floor to play. He looks for opportunities to wear matching outfits and Ma (that's me) takes a lot of photos when he's around.

It's early on Saturday morning and Mac is perched on his knees at the kitchen table. My wife and I, bleary-eyed, are curled into the couch drinking luke warm coffee. Andy is at the table with Mac, alternating between bites of fruit and crackers and moving trains and horses back and forth.

Andy holds Mac's attention with the proficiency of a six foot tall purple dinosaur. My wife and I take those moments to let our son's other parent do the parenting. My head rests on her shoulder as the boys chatter across the room.

Unaccustomed to our cold Canadian winters, Andy excuses himself from toddler play and heads to his room for a sweatshirt. Mac looks up from what he's doing and scans the room.

"Where my dad go Ma?" His squeaky little voice registers genuine concern.

"What did you say Mac?"

"Where my dad go?"

"Is that your dad Mac?"

He smiles a proud smile. He's figured out the possessive pronoun. That guy in the other room, the one with the scruffy face and the phone filled with videos of cats and horses on demand, he is not just any old dad, he is Mac's Dad.

Just two little letters that fall out of his mouth but they imply so much more.

My dad.

And he is.

Mac and Ba Fix Things

My Ba can fix anything. Ma told me so. But sometimes he needs help and Ma, Mo, and Bobo are all too lazy. So he said I could be his four-man. Which I guess means I'm as helpful as four men.

We both dressed in blue. Ba says to work you have to wear blue. Good thing I had some blue in my closet! And he gave me my very own set of tools. A drill and a hammer and a light. Just like his. 

When I go to bed tonight my moms might try to steal them for themselves. So I'm going to send them home with Ba instead so that next time we fix things they won't be lost. 

We did lots of drilling and banging. It was so much fun. And then we pulled the big machine that cleans dishes out and pushed a new one in. 

This new one is way cooler. I can use my fingers to paint streaks on it. Which is probably why my moms bought it for me. 

It's a good thing I was here to help my Ba. I don't think four men could have fit in our kitchen anyway! And Ba says I'm the best four-man he's ever had. 

Breath

He already has a virus. Croup we suspect. So we're watching him. Listening to breaths and looking at snot. The job of a parent is immensely glamourous. Under the weather and under the covers. We spend the day snuggled on the couch watching Barney on endless repeat. Sick baby days were easier when I still had control over the remote. We're big and little and short and tall. Some are in the middle some are very small. Are you big or little Mac? I ask him. Big Mac. He responds with pride.

And then his breath changes. We don't know if this is a serious development or not. Sometimes I worry that in this two mom family we jump to the worst possibilities first. But we head to CHEO (The Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario) anyway.

And so begins one of the scariest days of my parenting experience thus far. One nurse listens to his breath and calls a second nurse. There seems to be a correlation between how many medical professionals enter the room and how bad the situation is. One nurse, two nurse, red nurse, blue nurse. They talk to each other but not to us. A now quite lethargic Mac is slumped over my shoulder whining but I try to hear what they are saying over his mumbles.

Dual symptoms.
I don't hear air on the left side. 

The worst part about ER visits is the wait. Hours in a room with coughing, sneezy, and oozing kids and their tired and stressed out parents. One hour, two hours, seven hours. You should bring a charger for your iPhone. You are going to be there a while. But this time is different. We skip the wait and head directly to an isolation room. Turns out that the wait is not the worst part.

"Does the nurse think this is serious or does she just have bitchy resting face?" Tracy whispers to me. I'm not sure either.

In our private room Mac is clingy and unhappy. They show us how to administer Ventolin which means that one of us holds him down while the other tortures him. He holds us equally responsible.  Then prednisone. And more Ventolin. We need to do it every 20 minutes, and then every hour, and then every 2 hours.

No more puffs. No nice. Mac whimpers on repeat. 

The probable diagnosis is asthma but he's too little for the official test. The doctor is nice and reassuring. He asks if there is a family history of asthma and Tracy begins to tell him that she had a puffer as a child too. I give her a quizzical look and realize that she has forgotten her lack of a biological connection to our child. We all laugh. I forget sometimes too.

He needs to make it to two hours without needing Ventolin to be allowed to go home. As much as we want him to be better we both admit that we'd prefer the security of the hospital. But as we wait we talk about the parents we know that do this wait-and-see dance far too regularly. Children with special needs and serious illnesses who have spent more time in hospital rooms than any one person should. It becomes easier to put our day in perspective.

Eventually it is discharge time and we are uneasy. Tracy asks the kind doctor questions about risks and time frames. With each question the fear in her voice increases. The doctor can see her face flush red and he finds the words she needs to hear.  He turns to her and says that in the last 15 years not a single person under the age of 18 has died from asthma for not getting to hospital fast enough. Tears stream down her face with relief and she thanks him profusely.

At home we continue with the Ventolin and the prednisone. I stay awake and listen to him breath. In and out in and out in and out. Two days pass and the scary part is over. Tracy is calm and begins to return to normal. But, as is my way, I've deferred the anxiety. I did the same thing when I was 22 weeks pregnant and we nearly lost our boy. I was eerily calm through the ordeal as my wife panicked enough for both of us. Mama instincts took over. I kept calm for him. But anxiety deferred is not erased. It comes eventually.

The second day comes to an end and I'm a wreck. I call my mom and ask if she can come. She doesn't ask why. She and my dad are here 16 hours later. And we are all breathing better.

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Farmer Mac

"Are we going to go to the farm and see the horses?" My wife asks our son as we buckle him into his car seat. A grin that falls somewhere between Opie and Denis the Menace spreads across his face and he holds his hand out flat while repeating "nummie, BoBo, nummie, BoBo." BoBo is what he calls my mother. And she once took him to a farm and taught him to feed the horses with a flat hand. So now he assumes she will be present wherever there is a horse. "No BoBo," we tell  him. He seems confused.

I'm pretty excited to get to Tracy's Aunt and Uncle's farm. If you know me this might confuse you. I'm hardly the farm kinda gal. But I know my kid is going to love this adventure. He naps on the drive and before we know it we are driving down the dirt road. We pass a girl riding a horse. That's Tracy's cousin. Then a man on a 4 wheeler. That's Tracy's uncle.

After a rainy morning the air is moist and thick with mosquitos. But instead of dreading opening the doors of our air conditioned car I find myself pointing to things out the window and getting Mac to bounce with excitement in the backseat.

We have barely hugged our hellos when Tracy's uncle Larry tells us that one of the cats in the barn will likely deliver her kittens any day now. Mac doesn't say the word cat but he recognizes it. "Meow, meow, meow," he chants and we are heading into the barn to invade the poor girl's privacy.

Is that blood on her tail? OMG she's having a kitten right now! 

Mac is fascinated by the "baby meow," and it's difficult to tear him away from the scene. There's a solidarity I feel with this birthing mom. I didn't want a lot of people around either. 

We eventually convince him to come and feed the horses and after careful consideration he agrees. Hands behind his back, he marches toward the horses like a farmer surveying his grounds. 

At first their size intimidates him but soon he's bossing us all around and making us pick handful after handful of grass to feed to the "big dogs."

As the sun moves down on the horizon the mosquitos come out to play with a vengeance and we decide to head indoors for dinner. Mac throws himself on the ground at the prospect of exchanging grass for wood floors. A full-on fit like only a toddler can throw. When it comes to mosquitos he's like a honey badger. And honey badger don't care.

Unless, of course, there's cake. He'll come in for cake. And there is.

But indoors at the farm proves to be nearly as fascinating as outdoors. There's another cat. The indoor cat that wears a collar. And a piano. And a whole room full of adults who are willing to clap while loud banjo music plays and he dances in the middle of the room, delighting his audience with his moves.

Everyone has to work in the morning and as the minutes tick by we know we need to start heading home. But there is one more farm adventure for Mac to experience. The tractor. He knows what tractors are. We see them in his books. But he has never seen one up close. His whole body barely the size of a wheel.

As we approach he stops and bends down. One hand rests on his knee and the other points to the big yellow digger tucked behind the trees. His little body vibrates with excitement as he moves quickly towards the big machine. He's thrilled just to be in its presence. To feel the cold rough metal under his fingers. Larry helps him to climb inside and his eyes grow large as he gets to pretend he's driving.

Larry and Tracy switch places and conspire to blow his tiny mind. After a few quick instructions from her uncle Tracy smiles at Mac and turns the big machine on and drives forward. The distance they travel is short, maybe 100 meters, but Mac is amazed. The bucket comes up and down and it's clear that this is more exciting than Disney World. 

The day comes to an end and we put our dirty and exhausted toddler into the backseat and buckle him in. We've picked up a carful of mosquito hitch hikers. I hope we can get rid of them on the drive rather than bring a new colony of Quebec deep woods mosquitos back to the city.

As we drive down the dirt road I turn to my wife and sigh. "It's too bad we don't have any free holiday time this summer. It would be fun to come back here for a few days." Her forehead crinkles as she looks my way. No doubt thinking about my usual preference to stay in fancy hotels in the middle of the city for vacation.

"You've changed." She says. I look into the backseat at Mac who has resigned himself to the fact that we have left the magical place behind and is now focussing on trying to keep his heavy eyes open.

"I know." I say. And I wouldn't change it for the world.

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The First Haircut

As a toddler my brother had a floppy mop of adorable blonde curls that grew down towards his shoulders while my mother couldn't bear to cut them. One day my dad decided to get his hair cut without her knowledge. I don't think he meant to upset her. He just thought his son needed a haircut so he got him one. I don't think my mother has forgiven him nearly 30 years later.

Mac, on the other hand, has very little hair. But it grows in weird ways. Longer in some parts than others. So I make an appointment at MelonHead because they have cars, and trains, and airplanes for the little ones to sit in and I think he will love that. And he does.

We show up early to the appointment. And of course Tammy, Mac's Auntie Tata, comes along as well. The first haircut for a boy with the equivalent of three mothers is apparently a very big deal.

"Mac do you want to sit in the ChooChoo?"

"Mac do you want to sit in the airplane?"

"Ooohh Mac do you want to drive the car?"

Each of us focuses on a different vehicular choice and the poor kid is overwhelmed by all the mother-hen-ish estrogen. He gives us a look that is the equivalent of a toddler eye-roll and points to the plane. His stylist doesn't seem to bat an eye at the three women nervously bustling around the boy who is the centre of our universes.

I take the backpack off my shoulders and pull out my large pro-level camera and lens. I attach a flash. My wife has already warned me not to set up external flashes for this event. Tammy is waving at Mac from behind her iPhone and snapping pictures of her own.

Tracy is busy explaining her vision of Mac's hair to the stylist. To her credit, the stylist entertains my wife's long list of directives while casually joking that he has such a small amount of hair that she could probably blow on it to dry it. 

I'm still snapping away. Different angles. Smile Mac! Hey Mac! Macaroni! Mac? Hey Mac! Brrrrmmm Brrrrmmm are you flying? Macadoodle! Macadoodle Do!! 

The whole thing takes about 118 seconds and then it's over. But we need a little more photo documentation. 

Also, note to self, that hair dye made your hair much more orange than you think it did. 

The stylist pulls out her point and shoot camera. In its entirety it is smaller than my flash. Part of the MelonHead experience is a photo, certificate, and a cut lock of his hair. I feel a bit silly with my camera by comparison. Like I brought a gun to a knife fight. Or some other comparison that is less violent and more appropriate for a post my about kid's first haircut. 

She takes her picture and prints it off. She attaches the picture to a certificate with a tiny bag containing his cut hair. I pass the whole package onto Auntie Tata. She's much more pack-rat-ish than we are. She stuffs it into her oversized purse trying not to bend it. 

It has been ten minutes and everything is over and done with. Mac struts a little. Proud of his new do. His moms and his Auntie Tata follow behind. Six hands smooth his shirt, tug at his hair, and snap more camera phone pictures. 

And suddenly I smile a little to myself and feel a wave of sympathy for whatever girl or boy shows up at our house for his first prom. Good luck future prom date! Try not to be blinded by the flash. 

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A Quick Update - Back from Cincinnati

We have just arrived home from a fantastic weekend (horrendous travel stories aside) with Andy's family in Cincinnati Ohio.  A better post will come later in the week but I thought maybe you'd like a little preview of the cuteness.

Mac had so much fun puttering in the back yard with Andy's Dad Tom. Or, as Mac calls him, Bopa.

Uh, Dad? This is not how the cool kids wear their jeans. You are totally embarrassing me. 

Like Tin Men we Walk Around Heart-less

"Making the decision to have a child is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body." 
--Elizabeth Stone 

There is a pretty famous quote about parenthood that says that when you have a child you make a choice to forever walk around with your heart outside of your body. Like Tin Men in the Wizard of Oz we walk around fearful of the things that can happen to our hearts when they move outside of our field of vision. A lonely little heart out there all on his own. Does he miss me? Is he safe? How can my heart be expected to survive without me? And then we find people who can hold our hearts for safe keeping. Grandparents, aunts, uncles, friends and trusted child care providers. We wonder if we have made the right choice. Will she protect my heart? Will my heart be safe with him? Some of us are devastated to learn that answer to those questions was no. And that is the haunting part of having your heart walk around outside of your body. The horror of the possibility of that reality is enough to keep the rest of us up at night with worry.

I've been lucky enough to answer only yes to those questions. My heart has travelled to different cities and gone on many adventures beyond my view. And he has remained safe and protected. And now that I understand what it means to hand over your heart to another person for safe keeping I take it as an honour to be allowed to protect someone else's heart.

Jordan, or DieDie as Mac for some reason only intelligible to toddlers calls him, is someone else's heart. Sometimes his parents hand him over to me for safe-keeping. Those are Mac's favorite days. Each morning he wakes up and asks DieDie? DieDie? and if I have to tell him that there is no DieDie today his little heart breaks. For a minute until a truck or a cookie gets his attention.

So I cuddle him, that heart that belongs to someone else, and I love him like I would my own heart.

This week DieDie's mom is gone on a much needed and much deserved vacation. And as much as I know she is looking forward to the drinks and the beach and the sun and drinks, I also know that it will be difficult to board a plane without her heart. So before she left I helped Jordan to write a letter to his mom.

Enjoy the beach Amy! Your heart will be here safe and sound when you get back! 

Have you met my Dad? A guest post from Mac.

I have a Ma, a Mo, and an Auntie Tata. They all have their strengths and weaknesses when it comes to caring for me. My Ma is the best at scaring the bad dreams away and my Mo is the best at washing my hair without getting soap in my eyes. I don't know what is wrong with my Ma but she really sucks at that. And my Auntie Tata is the best at never saying no. She'll even lift me up to the magic cupboard and let me pick my own treat.

It takes a lot of work to tire these three out. But, hey, I'm up for the challenge. Sometimes other grown-ups, like my Gramma and Grampa, come to visit and Ma, Mo, and Auntie Tata sit on the couch depressed that they aren't getting all of my attention. Sometimes they can't even open their eyes because they are so sad. 

I also have a Dad but he lives in New York City. I visited him there last year. It's a cool place with lots of bagels. Dad comes to visit us in Canada too. He complains about the cold but not about the donuts. 

The first few times he visited I was just a baby and still a bit shy. My Ma hadn't yet earned my trust and I could never be really sure that she would come back when she left the room. So I kept her in arm's reach just in case. But she's left me 1023 times now and has come back every time so I'm starting to believe her when she says she'll be "right back." 

This visit with Dad was the best one yet. I'm not a baby anymore so I got to do big boy stuff with him. 

Like watch videos of cats on the button machine that my moms never let me touch. 

And staying up really late to watch even more videos of cats.

We had a pretty epic game of hide and seek in our cool no-moms-allowed blanket fort. 

He even showed me all of his cool big boy products - like soap that doesn't smell like flowers and bottles of dark liquid that make you smell rugged when you spray them. Once he forget to let me come in the bathroom with him. But I waited outside the door. 

And he felt so bad that he let me keep his toothbrush. That doesn't even have any cartoon characters on it. 

And when Ma brought us donuts he let me eat the cool one with the little coloured balls over it. 

He was really cool. And I guess he liked me too because he was constantly taking my picture. 

Ma says I'm starting to look just like him. 

Hopefully one day I can be just as cool as he is too. 

And We Are A Tricycle

Before we get started today I just wanted to take a moment to announce how incredibly honoured I am that Mondays with Mac placed in all three nominated categories of the 2012 Canadian Weblog Awards. It was named first in the Family & Parenting category, 2nd in the LGBTQ category, and 2nd in the Best New Weblog category. At the risk of getting too Oscar-y, it really was an honour to be nominated. And to have placed amongst such incredible blogs is truly humbling.

Now, back to your regularly scheduled blogging.

Last week Tracy and I got a taste of how the other half live. The Auntie-Tata-less parents out there. And let me tell you, we didn't care for it much. We tend to monopolize a fair amount of Tammy's time so, of course, we were happy for her when she said she was going on a cruise with a friend. But a week without her wasn't going to be easy.

I realize that a two-parent-to-one-child ratio is still pretty damn good. Cue all the single parents out there with a HELL YA. But you know what's better than a two-to-one ratio? A three-to-one ratio. Since she lives close by she visits several times a week and has been known to pick-up Mac and take him with her while she runs errands just because.

We are past the point of Tammy being company. I know this because I don't put a bra on when she comes over. Which I'm pretty sure is the definition of company. We don't even offer her a drink anymore. She knows where the fridge is.  Instead she just shows up and focuses all of her attention on Mac. And Mac entirely ignores us when she is there. Which, truthfully, is pretty awesome. I tend to sigh with relief when she walks through the door knowing that I've just switched to off duty and can take a few moments to check-out. Her presence has become so common in our home that I think we've begun to take it for granted.

We missed her while she was gone. And Mac missed her too. On the day she was finally (FINALLY) set to arrive home we continually bribed him to get dressed, eat his lunch, get in the car, and every other thing he sometimes makes a fuss about, by telling him that we were going to see Auntie Tata.

As we entered the airport he had basically given up on our seemingly fake promises. He ignored our pleas to hurry-up, we're almost there, if we can just get downstairs we'll see Auntie Tata. He had other ideas. He wanted to explore every inch of the airport instead. And then he found a table that was just his height and wanted some down time with an iPhone and a donut.

Finally we wrangled him to the waiting spot and promised, repeatedly, that Auntie Tata would be coming down the stairs at any moment. But we had cried wolf Auntie Tata too many times and he didn't believe us.

And then he saw her coming down the escalator. More tanned and relaxed than he was used to. But still, his Auntie Tata. And she was as happy to see him as he was to see her.

Now that she's back we will do our best not to take for granted the amazing support system we have in one very special not-by-blood-but-by-love aunt. She once joked that she was the third wheel in our parenting relationship with Mac. I almost corrected her but then changed my mind. She is absolutely the third wheel. And we are a tricycle.