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It’s Just Another Covid Monday

Their nails bore the markings of many paintings, worn off in long baths and having endured the infinite scratchings of unending boredom, still a myriad of colour remained, peaking through their flour crusted nail beds as they helped knead the dough.

“Can we make cinnamon buns?” They had asked. I sighed, with three helpers, an already somewhat arduous task would become exponentially messier and time consuming. But we had put up our Christmas tree only two days ago and the aroma of last years cinnamon dough decorations had filled the house, made our bellies yearn and our mouths water. The three times glued together, Christmas T-Rex, stared out with its single googly eye, from its low lying branch in the tree — baking was inevitable.

“Ok. Let’s do this. Remember this is a long project,” I said it to them, but it was meant for me. I took three deep breaths and reached for the already dusty bins of flour and sugar and placed them in front of the younger two, both armed with a mixing spoon.

We had the time. This year, caution dictates sick days be used for the most minor symptoms. “Just being cautious,” I said to myself as I logged in, last night, to submit my absence, reevaluating my daughters cough and runny nose in my mind. Never before has the bar been set so low for heroism: stay home. It feels good but so strange to stay home, guilt-free, on a day like today when our health is only barely compromised.

Just as I was thanking these dark and foreboding skies for their silver linings, my heart feeling warmer than our kitchen attempting to raise our ball of dough, our youngest walked into the kitchen sans diaper and smelling like a very full one. I was quick on the search, fearful of what mess might befall my eyes, but our very old yorkie had beaten me to it, her nose is years younger than the rest of her. Muzzle deep in the diaper and in desperate need of a hair cut, she looked like a Wookie, if Chewbacca had ever fallen head first into a fully loaded diaper.

Never has the bar been set so low for my personal accomplishments either, and I’m ok with it. I gave a dog a bath today. I repaired several Christmas decorations as I watched our tree turn into the most popular play space, only a few feet away from the bins overflowing with actual toys. I taught three kids very bad air guitar, and we rocked really hard to Green Day, blasting way too loud. And I added another layer of nail polish to their fingers, Christmas colours, because ‘tis the season.

Yes, our tree features an Easter basket with Ty Beanie unicorn, and it’s perfect.
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Big Baby

I heard the small footsteps and the wiggling doorknob before the light from the hallway filled my room. It can’t be time to get up yet, I thought to myself, but I think that every morning, so I rolled towards the clock. 4:00 am. No. Nope. 4 freaking am. No.

The light from the hall illuminated her nearly naked body. She must’ve peeled off her pyjamas in the night.

“I had a bad dream,” she said as she hurled “big baby” onto my bed, before returning to her own. I followed her small frame as she plodded back to her room. I pulled the blankets up to her chin, relit her nightlight and wished her sweet dreams.

I had nearly forgotten about big baby on the edge of my bed, until she hit the floor as I pulled up the the blanket.

She had been a gift from my grandmother. I know when she looked at the doll she didn’t see the frightening face looking that looked back at the rest of us, the wild hair or the devastatingly thinning fabric on the body, barely holding in her contents. She saw her own three daughters delighting over their brand new beauties on Christmas morning — or maybe it was their birthdays? The sweet blinding power of nostalgia.

It’s evident from the wear — and the pin prick in her earlobes — the doll was well loved and continued to be loved, long after she had stopped being played with. My grandmother carefully preserved her and another doll, my aunt’s, in a bag with several outfits and her original shoes until I too had a daughter.

My oldest was delighted to meet such a frightful creature; my nephew cried as I held her up. Her head flopped forward and her eyes opened wide and she stared directly at him. My husband and I shuddered as our daughter lovingly carried her to bed with her each night, tucking her in neatly beside her. Perhaps her young age allowed her to see past its appearance, or perhaps she enjoyed frightful items.

My grandmother sought out fresh clothing and hats for Big Baby and gifted them to our girls regularly, some complete with cutesie tiny doll hangers. Most of the time though, Big Baby sleeps amongst the other toys, completely naked, her torn body held together by several layers of packing tape. As even more time has passed she is at risk of disintegrating all together.

At 4 am, my disturbed mind imagined her dismembered, just a pair of arms and legs and a head with all of that scraggly hair. I would wrap up her remaining pieces and gift them to my unsuspecting siblings. 4 am does that to a person.

Even as she falls apart before my eyes and haunts our sleep, I haven’t had the heart to throw her away quite yet, although a couple more 4 am wake ups and I may change my mind.

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Teeth Time: A Torturous Tale

The five year old found a long lost tooth brush from the depths of our voracious couch — its grungy bristles splayed in protestation of years of misuse and neglect. A combination of crumbs, dust and dog hair littered the ground as her hand vibrated with every step she took, wielding it towards my face. I locked my lips, but she shouted, “Open wide!” I shook my head. “Open up!” She shouted again.

I interjected. Honestly, I’m surprised it took this long to be repaid for this beloved nightly ritual, so I unlocked my lips and prepared my mouth for the words that were about to spill out of it. “Get mine!” I generously offer. “Get mine and then you can do it.” I immediately regretted the words.

Happy with the compromise, she trotted off to prepare my toothbrush. She returned, the brush in hand barely visible beneath her tight grip and a thick layer of minty toothpaste. She tapped her foot and smugly demanded, “Open up.”

I did. She painted my teeth with it, the foamy saliva toothpasty mixture made its way across my lips and my chin and eventually up to my nose.

I smiled — a Joker-esque toothpaste grin- perhaps my good behaviour would elicit some in return.

The three year old watched with pure glee on her face, I could read her thoughts — it’s her turn next. For now she accepted her place in line, and as holder of the spit bowl — there was no way they were letting me get up to use the sink.

She recreated our nightly routine perfectly by shouting commands, tickling the roof of my mouth, prodding my tongue and giving me receding gum disease all while muttering something about getting all of the sugar bugs. 

I protested. 

“I’m not finished yet.” She countered, as she continued to rake my gums. 

Before my jaw physically fell off of my body, I shouted, “Show time!”

It worked though. The three year old was slightly more sympathetic to my nightly endeavour and there was only a short wrestling match that night.

Time well spent.

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When Parents Lie and Other Magnificent Things

I never cleaned under my bed. Ever. It infuriated my mom (I get it now, I’m sorry, Mom). And by never cleaned, I mean not only did I never clean under there, I also used it as a place to sweep all of the other items from my room that I didn’t want to clean up, which was mostly dirty laundry. By all appearances my bedroom was clean, but the facade quickly crumbled each and every time there was even the tiniest of inspections.

I’m sure she grew tired of repeating herself, so in some next level genius mother move, she created a horrendous atrocity of an insect that I had no idea only existed in both of our imaginations. It had wings, many eyes, long legs and it hopped, quite possibly flew and very much enjoyed dirty spaces and especially dirty laundry (well played, Mom).

I can vividly picture it to this day. So vividly, that for the next few years I peered anxiously at dust bunnies and lost socks with angst, I most certainly never swept anything under there again and anything that happened to slide too far into the darkness had to be written off, for the rest of time. I spent the next few years leaping onto my bed from a safe distance so as not to disturb what may have been lurking underneath. There was no need for further inspections, the lie eliminated the problem. I’m fairly certain she forgot about the bug, not long after the dirty dilemma ceased to exist, though I would continue to be haunted by it for years to come.

She successfully converted me (although I’ve exchanged the antiquated “cleanliness is next to godliness” adage, for a slightly more favourable and much more achievable “keep it tidy or kinda close so droppersby won’t think you’re gross” sort of motto). It was not until I had become a parent myself that I actually questioned its existence. That’s right I was 32 years old, speaking to my own daughter, and repeating myself about the importance of maintaining a state of near cleanliness, when the bug hopped into my mind and I realized it was all a clever hoax. 32. What an effective ruse.

I grew up before the Internet age, a time when parental lies went unchecked. A time when most lies were unverifiable, my mom had the upper hand, and really she had all the hands, because a parents word was irrefutable. These days we parents are dangerously close to losing the “parents are always right” advantage.

Our five-year-old daughter captured a black and vibrant yellow millipede in her grandparents garden. She lovingly prepared a home for it in an empty coffee can, and allowed it to crawl all over her hands and arms. When she wanted to know what to feed it, she asked me to ask my phone. She knows. She knows exactly how the internet works: no question needs to remain unanswered. She even fact checks her dinosaur encyclopedia against the internet, hoping to catch an error. In this circumstance we learned black and vibrant yellow millipedes are poisonous, and it now resides outside, again.

But that’s not all our parents lied about, they also told us if we dug deep enough, we could get to China and then handed us a shovel. We believed them, maybe we were extra gullible or maybe the idea that we could pop out on the complete opposite side of the world was so entertaining it was worth the effort, so we dug, real blister-popping, callous-forming, rewarded-by-splinters, digging.

My sister thought my kids thoroughly vacuuming the stairs with a play vacuum that spins heart shaped sparkles around while whirring, was painstakingly sad. She was born in the 90’s though, things must have been different then. My kids think they’re helping, and they are, it’s just not with vacuuming. Sometimes we parents need a minute, where the kids are occupied and not with fighting.

I tried it. I told a lie, at least I think it was a lie, or maybe it has actually happened once to someone somewhere and the story has been retold for generations to come, as a warning for all of us. I was locked behind u-shaped table, which limited my access to the rest of the class, which occasionally frequently strayed from the task at hand. I glanced up from the laboured reading of the yellow group and locked eyes with the new boy. Surrounded by three kids who had flipped their eyelids inside out, he was TERRIFIED. Before I had time to think, I blurted out, ”they’re going to stay like that!”

“But we’ve done it before,” they countered.

“Yes. I know.” (I had taken time to explain how horrifying this was, just yesterday.) “But that’s the thing with eyelid flipping, you don’t know when it will stick, it just does sometimes.” I raised my eyebrows, summoned an ominous voice and added, “Forever.” I had to, in for an inch, in for a mile, or something like that. For his sake, I perpetuated the messed up children’s urban legend and added a Russian roulette twist. Before you judge, don’t forget how I was raised. Bonus: they never did it again and while I wasn’t incredibly proud of how I’d curbed the eyelid flipping, it was effective. So I get it and I think I’d do it again.

I grew up in a time, when “because” or “I don’t know” sufficed as answers, but my kids are used to answers because the answers are so readily available, and they know it.

I don’t think I’ve deliberately lied to my own kids yet, aside from the usual exaggerating of the truth, like if you don’t let me brush your teeth they will rot, where the immediacy is very intentionally implied. I also often blame things on time, like it’s too late/early for candy or it’s time to go. I find it concerning that when the time for real lies, the big imaginative creative ones, does present itself, the internet has the capability of instantly and effortlessly tearing my intricate web of lies to pieces.

Has the internet deprived us parents of the chance to recirculate the lies we were once told? Or are kids still buying into the urban legends of our youth?

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Dear Lovely Strangers

To all of you Lovely Strangers,

Thank you.

I thought I knew what I was doing having three kids. I had successfully maneuvered a large box from the post office to my car with two kids in tow — and by in tow I mean one twenty feet ahead and another trailing twenty feet behind — while eight months pregnant. Surely managing an infant would be similar.

And it is, exactly like that, except the box baby needs things which often reminds the older two, they too need things. They often wait for inopportune times to loudly express their demands for things like food and water or to use the bathroom, or whichever thing I offered them only moments earlier, when I wasn’t changing a dirty diaper. Some days are exhausting, others are lovely (but still exhausting).

So thank you. Thank you for seeing me. Thank you for offering — even if I don’t take you up on it — I appreciate your offer, and more than that, I appreciate you.

You saw me struggling to buckle up the infant carrier. Usually an easy feat, I stretched my arms reaching for the buckle behind my neck, while balancing a tired, crying baby on my chest, maybe it was my hair in the way, maybe it was the squirming infant, but the buckles would not meet. You asked if you could help, thank you.

You saw me bouncing and swaying with a baby nearly asleep in the carrier, keeping an eye on my other two children, running wild circles around the other picnickers while waiting for our lunch. I filled a mini cup with ketchup and prepared to balance two precarious plates overflowing with food truck goodness back to where my older two were supposed to be sitting. You asked if you could help, thank you.

You saw me as I herded my two children towards the ice cream line up. Their bodies anticipating sugar, vibrated with excitement causing them to physically bounce and spin and loudly shriek which flavour they’d prefer. With a baby in one arm and my other hand full of teetering lunch time garbage, I scanned the area for a garbage can. You offered to help, thank you.

You saw me struggling to close my very obstinate stroller. No amount of jiggling, jostling, pushing, pulling, or silent cursing were collapsing the cantankerous pram. Beads of sweat dotted my brow as I stared at it with a great deal of contempt and considered abandoning it all together, when you walked by. You offered to help, thank you.

You saw me walking ten paces ahead of my very over tired three-year-old. I used my very best patient voice and tried to coax her the last few steps to the exit of the park. Walking by with a group of friends and seemingly well-behaved children, you suggested we mothers should fist bump each other in trying times like these. Thank you.

You’ve picked up soothers, chased after me with fallen shoes, held open doors, helped my children off of swings and shared stories in exhausted solidarity. Thank you.

When my five-year-old daughter sneakily fuelled by sugar and freshly scolded, locked me out of the house and didn’t return to the door no matter how gently or furiously I knocked, I hesitated to ask for help. Partly because I thought she would open the door, and partly because I had never experienced helplessness at this level. It is hard to be completely helpless to circumstances, to admit things are completely outside of my control, especially sugar-induced spiritedness. With my phone inside, a baby in my arms and a very sweaty, very sticky, pant-less daughter by my side, all of us shoeless, I found you on the sidewalk. You didn’t judge me as I explained our situation and I asked to use your phone. You kindly listened, and empathetically distracted me with small talk as you walked with me back to my house. You waited as I explained the situation again to my husband on your phone. You waited until my five-year-old finally opened the door, a cheeky smile on her face, my phone in her hand and her dad on the screen. Thank you.

It really does take a village, and I’m so lucky to have a fairly capable body, a great husband and a strong circle of family and friends to help along the way and then there’s you, lovely strangers, filling in the gaps. I never realized before how much that African proverb also pertains to the parents. It takes a village to raise a child, but it also takes a village to raise a parent. Thank you for helping to raise me. Your kindnesses do not go unnoticed.

One day, when my hands are less full, I promise to pay it forward.

Thank you.

This post was republished by Scary Mommy right here.

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The Hand Mold

A week after Christmas, our home had resumed a level of near normalcy we felt comfortable with.  Presents had mostly found their way into closets and toy bins.  But one item remained on the counter, unopened, constantly attracting the attention of our four-year-old.  We had said enough “laters.” She was clearly onto us.  Knowing we had little to no intention of opening it anytime soon, she pleaded that we open it immediately.

Removal of the packaging attracted our two-year-old daughter, who pulled up a chair so she could partake in the action.  My husband, occupying the tiny space between both chairs, very wisely intercepted a small but dangerous amount of glitter, and threw the contraband straight into the garbage.  With a bit of warm water, they prepared the hand-molding, memory-making kit.  

They poked, then kneaded, then stretched the dough-like substance.  Excitedly, the girls stretched out their fingers as their dad worked to flatten it, stretching the dough to accommodate three hands, on a dough that was meant for one.

It was meant for our youngest to commemorate just how tiny she was on her first Christmas.  Just two weeks old now, I held her as I comfortably sat on a bar stool on the other side of the counter.  I observed my husband using all sorts of patience to complete the task, kindly accepting help from the very persistent hands begging to take part.  

When he deemed it large enough, he took our four-year-olds hand and pressed it into the white material, carefully pressing each finger to make a deep enough indent.  Our two-year-old spread out her fingers as wide as she could, her hand overtook the remaining space.  It took several attempts to position her hand appropriately, only to find she had blue marker all over her hand, that was now a part of the commemorative hand mold.  Now it was time for our youngest daughter, the one it was intended for.  Her hand barely fit in the tiny remaining space, he struggled to unclench her fist, jostling her around, while he pressed her hand gently but hard enough to make an impression. Both older sisters crowded in even closer.  

And then she spat up.  A big one.  All over the whole project.  Our four-year-old was heart broken, our two-year-old cried loudly.    

It was salvageable, just like most of these moments that go awry.  After he wiped it clean, he etched in their names and the year with a fork.  He laid it flat to dry, still somehow it curled.  Maybe it needed the glitter, maybe it needed to not be spat up on or maybe it didn’t like being washed. 

This curled, stained, spat up on commemorative hand mold, perfectly represents our imperfect family.  Normally this happens when we attempt “nice” family photos, someone is doing something ridiculous, isn’t looking or is facing completely backwards.  I love those photos, always laughing at how accurately the camera is able to capture all of our personalities or our particular moods that day.  Like most of our attempts at anything we do as parents, this didn’t go as we had envisioned and all we could do was laugh and carry on.  

And now this beautifully tiring season in our lives is solidified in a weird piece of foam that hangs on our four-year-olds bed.  

It’s perfect.

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Dear Christmas Tree

Dear Live Christmas Tree,

You are beautiful.  Your glow makes 5:03 am feel less 5ish.  You smell really great.  But what’s with all the spiders??

Fearfully,

Natasha

 

Dear Tiny Live spider,

Please kindly agree to the following terms and conditions:

-no running

-no raising of any legs in a threatening-ish manner

-no escaping the gentle death grip of toilet paper

-absolutely no jumping

-certainly no skin to skin contact

(Although I’m almost certain it was YOU who did not agree YESTERDAY, I believe in second chances)

Contractually,

Natasha

 

Dear Sweet Children,

Please do not murder each other as I spend the next 5 minutes trying to carefully catch and release this tiny (very feisty) spider with a single square of toilet paper.

Imploringly,

Mom

 

Dear Mother Nature,

I have returned one of yours to you.

I will be back for that toilet paper, but later.  It was dark, there was no way to know if the spider had vacated.

You’re welcome,

Natasha

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Parenting: A Series of Games I Never Wanted to Play

Since having kids my life has slowly evolved into a series of games I never wanted to play. I am an unwilling participant in the game that I ironically created. I put out the pieces, I chose the location, I even created the players and yet somehow they are the ones pulling the strings. Jigsaw himself would shudder at this level of ingenuity.

Now I had pictured predictable games of peekaboo very slowly morphing into cunning and calculated games of risk, but this, this, I never saw coming.

I’m perpetually being forced into games of hide and seek where I am permanently seeking, seeking my toothbrush, my car keys, one of my daughter’s 26 soothers that she has hidden. Which is quickly followed up by 21 Questions, beginning with where have you been?

I’m subjected into performing twisteresque moves as I hold both the toilet and the drawers shut, fending off piranha-like teeth of fury, while applying mascara, in order to prevent my daughter from repetitively sinking her toothbrush into the Vaseline and then the toilet.

Begrudgingly I play Go Fish, except I’m continuously fishing for matching socks in a mountain of laundry. I thought I’d solved everything when I purchased a very large amount of plain white socks. After a few wears and washes they have all turned varying shades of mud, thus creating natural partner socks and the unsuccessful fishing begins again.

I am the master of the 12 meter dash (now I’m not sure if dashing is technically a game, but I’m very well practiced, and could do this competitively, but only in socks and on vinyl flooring). When I hear the eeriest sound a parent can hear, nothing, I take this to mean that they are both dangerously entangled in the perilous strings that control my blinds, only to find them two spoons deep in a ten pound container of sugar. Surrounded by a thinly layered circle of sweetness, my oldest daughter declares, “I like sugar” and since they are both safely occupied I dash back to the bathroom to finish getting ready for the day.

My youngest daughter doesn’t talk quite yet, but that doesn’t stop her from loudly communicating when something is not going her way. There is a mark on her head and she is yell crying proclamations of injury. I deductively try to piece together the events that led up til now. Was it a fall? She shakes her head, which could denote either a yes or a no. Did you bonk your head on a drawer? Again indeterminate head shaking with more yelling accompanied by arms flailing and fingers pointing. Did your sister hurt you in the office with the candlestick?!?

When my daughter dumps the tin full of no less than 148 fragments of chewed crayons onto the table, half of them clattering to the floor, I’m not sure whether to be irritated or giggle as she claps her hands gleefully as she realizes what she has done, either reaction will guarantee a repeat dumping so I sit staring, expressionless, exhibiting the poker face I learned many years ago, unwilling to show my hand, but so close to folding.

Reluctantly, I use my Operation-like skills to scoop quickly regenerating boogers out of a congested, crying, flailing, target. Because of intensive early training, I am able to do this with great precision.

My house is becoming more and more like Jumanji as the number of stuffies and play animals begin to multiply. Stampeding from the bedroom where they belong, they have made their way down the hall and into the living room. I attempt to chase them back but the greater the effort I put forth the larger the revolt.

At times I feel like the poor old maid, pictured as aging and worn, hair pulled back, but even more haggard is the card itself, bent so many times the woman on the front is almost unrecognizable. I know how she feels, wrinkled, dirty and exhausted, and instead of being quickly passed back and forth between 2 players she just wants to curl up in bed with a book.

Being a parent you need to think a few moves ahead, anticipate what the other player may do, adjusting your actions accordingly. I was never any good at chess. I can see exactly zero moves ahead, because kids, at least my kids, are excruciatingly unpredictable. And perhaps that is why parents take a great deal of pleasure in embarrassing their teenage children. One can hope.