The Small-Town Latte Mission

My tongue is stinging. I look down at my latte with trepidation. I need the caffeine but my

tongue hurts. It hurts.

I’m staying at my friend Eldora’s farmhouse. It’s outside the small town where our
new house awaits. Sir Dick and I take possession in a couple of weeks so we’re on a
visitation.

The day begins with several layers of scalded tongue cells, courtesy a local “coffee
shop”.

Never trust them with your coffee.

One of the voices in my head says, “You can’t take your eye off them, not even for a
second”…this person emerges when I forget to check an expiry date, or when something
doesn’t make it into the grocery bags, or, say, when a styling assistant blow-dries my
hair and poofs the top of my head, making me look like a Real Housewife. It especially
goes into gear on culinary expeditions in small towns. I should know. I am an actor.
I have toured most small towns in this country. Trucker coffee is well known to me.
Always head to the Greek place.

My tongue hurts.

Here’s what happened:

“El, can you go in and get me a latte?”

…Guppins fast asleep in the backseat.

“No problem.”

I decide to complicate things. I roll down my window:

“Ask them to keep it a little dry...”

(Blank stare)

“It means less milk more foam.”

The second it’s out of my mouth, I regret it.

“Okay.” She gives me a look. It was subtle, but I got it. I’m a spoiled brat. (That’s the
other voice in my head.)

A colleague once told me that when acting, I should remember the two little gnomes
perched on each shoulder. One constantly whispers, “You’re shit — you really suck.”
The other one is saying, “You’re gonna fuckin’ die.”

Harsh, I know. Kinda blows the angel/devil thing out of the water, but I like it. Ramps up
the whole acting intention stuff. Anyway…

Back to Eldora and the small-town latte mission. Eldora, a former hippie, a real
knockout, a music-playing goddess, former whatever whatever of Sir Dick, was raised by
German farmers nearby and has lived here her whole life (but for some time in Toronto
educating herself to be a piano tuner, among other things). She had two kids, starting
at age eighteen. So did her daughter, and then her daughter’s son, and her daughter’s
daughter, which is why she was a great-grandmother at my age. I look at this legacy of
accidental regeneration and I worry. Is this what happens in a small town? If you don’t
keep your eye on things? Is the Guppins going to be a grandmother by the time she’s
twenty?

Eldora has done everything, every job; she is the hardest-working person I have ever
met. Her man Boogie is an antiques guy, but he doesn’t believe in selling anything and
it makes Ursula mentally insane. Still, they’ve done well. They own several properties,
and both work behind the scenes at the massive theatre company I was recently turned
down by. Eldora has few faults. But she makes weak coffee. (Sorry, El.) I like really
strong espresso, and needed a hit before visiting the new house.

She returned with the latte (seemed to take a long time), passed it through the car
window, said “Okay, meet you there,” walked off to her car, I took a sip.

I spat — I spewed —a scream caught in my throat. What was I THINKING? Never let
your guard down when it comes to coffee in a small town — NEVER LET IT DOWN! If
there is one thing I hate, it’s scalding my tongue on an over-steamed, flat, burning-hot
latte. And I know why this is done, yes I do. I know this because I once worked, eons
ago, with an espresso machine. When you don’t know what you are doing, you think
steaming milk longer will make it foam more. It doesn’t. It just burns the milk. It makes it
foam less. So my whole thing about “make it dry” likely

A) embarrassed my friend Eldora;

B) stressed out the — I can barely say it — “barista”;

C) who knew I was from Toronto and deliberately wanted to burn the shit out of my
mouth because he or she hates outsiders.

Okay, maybe C is a little bit conspiracy-minded.

The “latte” was an overly large Styrofoam container of scorched milk consisting of zero
foam and vaguely tasting of car tire. Or ash tray.

I decide to hold my tongue about it. I have to; it is practically bleeding out of my face.

“Spoiled brat!” says the voice.

I take the ice pack from the travel cooler I keep for the Guppins’s food and swab my
tongue with it. Which produces a cloud of steam and smoke that leaks out the car
windows. I’ve been branded by stupid small-town stupid coffee.

“How’s your latte?”

(It burned the shit out of my tongue. I hate it here.)

“Pretty good — a bit on the hot side.”

At this, Eldora, no dummy, gives me her best farm girl:

“Well, he was probably trying to make a lot of foam because he spent a lot of time
steaming it for you.”

For you.

Love that.

We get to the new house. It’s all different. It looks smaller. It is now clear to me that
vampires occupy it. Vines block the windows. There is no light. And one of the vampires
has decided to return after ten minutes because, she tells our agent, she has a bad
back.

She perches on the sofa in the middle of the house and chatters away. Loudly.

I avoid her. Isn’t this illegal? This wouldn’t be allowed in Toronto!

Finally I have to go into the room of Vampire Perch to measure it.

“What part of Toronto are you from?”

The west...section.

“I lived near High Park!” she screeches.

I can see, clearly, it was a brief runaway trip with a boyfriend to a methamphetamine-
type setting in Brantford, or some year at community college that didn’t pan out.

From the city. Ha. Her mother works at the local health food store. I learn this, along
with a myriad of details pertaining to her sex life, while attempting to focus on MY NEW
HOUSE.

“I know what it’s like moving from the big city. It’s a big change. Oh, by the way, we are
leaving the piano action. It’s our gift to you!”

INAPPROPRIATE! Get this woman out of here!! I can feel her life force seeping into my
pores. Oh God, please can you just not exist? Worse yet — I adore the piano action. It
hangs in the front hall, a unique piece of reclaimed art. Even Eldora was impressed by it
during the first house viewing:

“Well, wouldn’t you know, I threw one of those on the fire last week!” (Eldora)

“Oh God, I love it (I say at the time). I’ve never seen anything like that in TORONTO.”

“Don’t worry I’ve got another one in the back barn.”

Seriously. She has two piano actions. And two barns.

So, knowing Eldora has one for me in stock, I say to the little vampire with Big Sticky-
Outy Evil Elfin Ears:

“That is so [weirdly] generous of you — why don’t you want to keep it?”

(Now I’m thinking it’s haunted. The piano action is haunted and she wants to leave it in
the haunted house we just bought.)

“We-elll…” says Vampire Elf, “our new place has a lot of windows [liar], it’s practically
all windows [liar], and you see how much [godforsaken] art we have. I could give you
my email — not sure if you’re ready for phone numbers yet [never] but we live only five
minutes away [fuck] and I know what it’s like....”

Turns out she’s a big fan of Sir Dick. From one of his TV shows where he plays a father-
figure type. Undoubtedly this explains everything.

It also turns out, we are yet to discover, the house is haunted.

Buyer’s remorse.

New life, here we come.

-Drama Mama

Surprise!

Here is a list of some shit I wasn’t expecting that happened to me after W was
born.

•I don’t care as much about my dog, who was my “baby” pre-W.

•People at work tell me I am “nicer now.”

•I get a headache if I don’t have coffee within 20 minutes of being awake.

•I get drunk faster — like, two glasses is all it takes.

•I feel terribly, horribly guilty for sleeping in ’til 1:30 in the afternoon today,
mainly because I am not sick and there are dishes in the sink!

•I lose patience with my physiotherapist for talking slowly and making me
sign the same three forms every time I come in.

•I have a physiotherapist.

•I spend hours on the Internet googling things like, “Should babies brush
their teeth?” “easy slow cooker meals,” and “easy one-pot meals.”

•I am head-over-heels, can’t-live-without-it, in capital “L” Love with
soothers. There are soothers in all my pockets and purses. I was always a
person who would look at soother kids with disdain and think, “My kid will
never…” Well, he does.

•I have given up my passion for ultimate frisbee and organized recreational
sport in general.

•I can no longer watch Intervention because I can’t see baby pictures of
addicts and hear the voice-over of their parents saying how he/she was
such a happy baby…too sad and scary.

•I can’t watch “super nanny”-type shows because listening to other
people’s children scream and disobey is not entertainment, it is torture.

•The only channel I watch now is Food Network.

•My nipples point downwards.

-Tightrope Mama

[image source: marthastewart.com]

Bitchy Lions, Episode 2: Nobody Puts Mommy in a Corner

I try to limit myself to wearing jeans to the office once a week. I try to give the
impression that I find annual fiscal budgets really interesting. I try to pretend that I do
not strongly covet the entire wardrobe of this woman on my floor who wears things like
a simple black dress with a big, hot-pink necklace and makes weird Aladdin pants look
good. I try to sit up straight and limit my bathroom stall naps to once a day. I try. That is
the point: I am trying.

So, when my sweet co-worker with kids got pneumonia and had to miss some (a lot) of
work, I tried extra hard. I tried on her behalf too. I tried to remind people that she was
working from home (she was) and that just when she was feeling better her child got
a double ear infection (he did). I even came to work with food poisoning and barfed in
between two presentations. I did this because working moms have to try to be (if not
just BE) better than they were pre-baby, and we certainly have to be better than our
childless contemporaries. Obviously a company would prefer a childless worker (no
baggage, no sick kids, no mid-day daycare calls), but look! Look over here, look at me
multi-tasking! LOOK!

Because I try, I felt I had to attend a Women who Lead Networking BS seminar. (Oh,
and because the president asked me in a cab if I was going. “Oh, yes, sounds fun!” I
say.) My work hired (PAID MONEY for) some woman to say things like, “When I had
my third baby, I treated myself to a whole month off!” (audience laughs — silly woman,
taking time off with her children!) and, “In between my booming career, my kids, my
husband, my marathon running and my speaking engagements, I am also learning
woodworking…in my spare time” (audience laughs — silly woman, girls can’t do
carpentry, but so cute that she is trying!). “For the love of God!” I felt like screaming as I
stood there with my warm Chardonnay. Are you kidding me?

This is the problem. Women like that are a huge part of the problem. I know the seminar
wasn’t called “Tired Mothers who Lead”; it was called “Women who Lead,” so she didn’t
have to cater to me specifically. But not only was she insulting the women there who
were moms, but also setting a pretty high bar for the women who might be considering
motherhood. And worst of all, she was telling the non-moms and never-gonna-be-moms
that we moms SHOULD be doing everything, with no stress, and just fucking loving it!

This woman had a huge opportunity to talk candidly to other women, not spout out “I am
superwoman, be like me!“ My employers also had an opportunity to address the very
real world of working women and the challenges we face with honesty, but they didn’t.
I’m not surprised.

To be fair, I did leave early (because it went ’til 5:30 and that is crazy talk to me). And
I sighed all the way home. What kind of a message are women sending each other
when we decide that superwoman is the model we should strive to be? Why do we
consistently reward women if, and only if, they can do pretty much everything (including
woodworking, apparently) and stay thin? Why is 9 to 5 not enough, even though that is
what we are paid for? Why do I feel like I need to preface every conversation with, “Oh,
this cold isn’t contagious. I have had it since August; it is from my son’s daycare”? Why
do I get nervous about calling in sick? Why do I have to try so hard?

I know why. Because when my co-worker with pneumonia finally came back to work,
the queen Bitchy Lion swooped past our desks and said, “Oh, hi. How are you feeling?”
My friend: “I’m good. My chest does still hurt a bit, but all my X-rays looked good!” Me:
nodding supportively. Bitchy Lion makes a pinched face: “Well, stay in your corner,”
followed by an awkward laugh.

Stay in your corner. That is what a real-life woman who leads said. Out loud. She
thought it was a joke, I think.

-Tightrope Mama

Guilt

I am a half-Irish (lapsed) Catholic who also happens to be an only child. So to
say that I have a lot of experience with guilt would be an understatement.

Without a doubt, some of the worst guilt of my day strikes me during the period
of 9 to 5, Monday to Friday. I know all moms work, but I happen to have a
traditional 9-to-5, out-of-the-house, coffee-breaks-at-10-and-2 kind of job. Which
means I wake up at approximately 6:20 every day. I am out of the house by 7:35
(7:45 means NO daycare parking to be had) and at my desk by 8:30. I leave my
desk by 4:30 and am on Lakeshore Boulevard by 4:45 (4:55 means an extra 20
minutes in gridlock), and at the daycare by 5:20, and home by 5:40. We eat as
a family, most days — yes, I will accept a pat on the back for that — and then
bed and bath are completed by 7:00. Phew. It is a tight schedule, but it works.
If “works” means we all survive and sometimes manage to enjoy ourselves. (Side
note: The slow cooker has saved my life.)

So, guilt. Today as I walked to the photocopy room, I suddenly wished W was
there. I wished we were holding hands. I wished I could see him, just for a
second. It wasn’t a fleeting moment; it was a real, palpable wish.

Across from my office there is a grocery store where I buy something — lunch,
milk, lottery tickets — three days out of five. While I am in the store I spend most
of my time talking to babies. For real. There are so many moms in the grocery
store in the middle of the day, it is unreal. Most of the babies are little and in their
car seats (wistful sigh for the days when I could grocery shop with W strapped
into a seat), and I am okay with those babies. I recognize that the mommies
are on mat leave. But sometimes the babies (okay, they are children) look like
W. They are his age. They are precious and precocious and running down the
aisles. They are adorable and funny and I almost burst into tears some days
wishing W was there. Wishing that I could be in the store at 11:00 a.m. on a
Wednesday with my sweet, precocious boy.

Then I realize I am staring and I move along to the pre-packaged salads.

As you have read, W loves daycare. He is happy and fine, but am I? Am I okay
with things? Should I feel guilty for even thinking about MY happiness? Probably.
I miss my little guy so much sometimes at work that my heart aches. Sometimes
I secretly wish that my husband and son would just magically appear at my desk
after a meeting. Is this normal? I don’t know anymore.

I have a co-worker, whom I love, who has two boys. She says the silver lining of
work is eating lunch and peeing whenever you want. She is right. But it is sad.
That is our silver lining, which is…I don’t know what it is. On weekends, I eat
whenever I can, and W comes to pee with me, and I am actually pretty okay with
it.

I don’t know what the future holds jobwise, but as the words “Toddler Room”
and “Preschool” start getting tossed around, I realize I am making spreadsheets
and PowerPoints instead of Play-Doh figures and bubbles in swim class.
And today it is weighing on me. Maybe it won’t next week, but today I would
have traded it all for W to magically appear beside the photocopier, but even
during the WORST barf-fuelled, hellish moments I have NEVER wished for the
photocopier to magically appear.

-Tightrope Mama

[image source: University of the Arts London]

Cheating

Last week I kissed a man who is not my husband on the mouth. He was gay, and drunk, and he actually did the kissing, and I told my husband, and he laughed, but I still feel a teensy bit guilty. Not because I wanted to be kissed, but because I did get a bit of a thrill out of it. Not that the thrill was due to attraction, because it wasn’t. This guy was clearly not even in the same ballpark as me, let alone on the same team. (I don’t know what that means.) I think the thrill was a result of being married too long and being stuck home most nights with a child and not getting to do the crazy sexy things I did in my youth. This is the closest I’ve got to dancing in the foam pit at Senor Frog’s or making out on a pool table in a long time. And it’s not even close. And it’s all because of Cookie.

I’ve had this urge for a while now. Not specifically to kiss a strange man on the mouth; just to get irresponsibly drunk and make bad choices. In this case, I was merely a tad tipsy and I let someone else make a choice that was rather out of character. But in all the scenarios in which I imagine myself indulging this urge, my husband is there, so in my mind I’m not cheating. Which is great, right? That I fantasize about doing naughty things (although not those naughty things, but that’s another story) with the person I’m supposed to do things in general with. Still, no matter how much I rationalize it, I can’t shake this urge. Once again, it’s all because of Cookie.

Before Cookie, I wasn’t a party girl (although I did enjoy a good, or even a bad, party) or a bar fly (although my favourite seat anywhere is a barstool) or a slut (full stop). But I enjoyed my relative freedom, and enjoyed it well into my thirties, so to have had it so abruptly taken from me is still a bit of a shock. While I was pregnant, but before I knew it or even suspected that it was possible, my husband and I drank our way across Britain, from whisky tastings in Scotland to pub-hopping pints in Yorkshire to a champagne- and Pimm’s-soaked wedding in Ascot. Spirit of the West’s “Home for a Rest” comes to mind. Cue the immense guilt a month later, when I finally figured out why the bike ride to work was taking five minutes longer than it should. Not to mention the nagging concern, despite my doctor’s repeated assurances. (“We really only worry about binge drinkers” — well, it was a good vacation, so define binge again?)

I think I’m still looking forward to the next party, and over two years later I haven’t got to it yet. And I want to, I so want to! But any time I’m out, I just know that if I have more than a couple of drinks, the following morning will be intolerable. If you’ve seen that show Up All Night, with Christina Applegate and Will Arnett, you can imagine the scenario. In the first episode, they go out, decide to stay out way too late just like they used to, and sure enough they are woken up a mere two hours later by a screaming child. They’re fully dressed, hung over, and faced with a nasty diaper that they can barely change between the two of them without hurling. I know that scene; I’ve lived it. Once was enough.

So my fantasy goes something like this: Cookie stays for an entire weekend with someone. Don’t care who; sometimes you just have to let the details slide in fantasies, just as in sitcoms. Hubby and I go out Friday night with our best friends. First stop is pre-dinner cocktails, then dinner accompanied by buckets of wine, then a bar for drinks made with Malibu rum or blue curacao or something equally ridiculous and ill-advised. Then we do something stupid, like go to an after-hours club or make out with the wrong spouse or take a cab to a casino a hundred miles away. On Saturday we sleep it off. On Sunday we go out for a very greasy breakfast, then clean the house, then pick up Cookie, and then life returns to normal.

Some people would call that a weekend. I used to, occasionally. (Except for the bit about making out with the wrong person, I swear.) But now that I’m a parent, I call it cheating. On Cookie. Because it just feels like one of those fantasies where you’re hooking up with Daniel Craig, but in order to convince yourself that it’s even possible you’ve got to theoretically get rid of your partner, so he suddenly turns into an irredeemable asshole or you kill him off or something like that. And even though it’s a fantasy, it still feels a bit like cheating. As does the thought of abandoning my child with a family member so I can go off on a lost weekend — cheating on parenthood.

So for now I stick to my two-drink max and the occasional bizarre incident. And someday, someday, when Cookie can take care of herself, I’ll get to Ibiza. Man, will I look out of place by then.

-East End Mama

Morning Moment

One of my fellow bloggers wrote a beautiful piece about “the moment” she felt okay.
She remembers light streaming through a hospital window, her son on her chest, and
just finally finding some peace. I have been thinking a lot about that since I read her
thoughts. Mostly I have been racking my brain trying to pinpoint the exact moment in my
own life when I felt what she described so eloquently, and I can’t seem to do it.

My hospital experience, like hers, was not exactly what you would call blissful. Nursing
(as you have read) was an utter shit show. Those who know me know that I don’t exactly
embody stillness, so maybe that is why I can’t recall much of anything from my hospital
stay besides blood and milk (gross, but true).

So, instead of comparing my experience to her lovely story, I am looking to the present
for my moments. Since reading her piece I have been noticing the moments in my
day-to-day that make me happiest and calmest. Shockingly, I think my best moment
of the day occurs around 6:45 a.m. I have never been a morning person, but there is
something about waking up to the quiet babbling of your little guy that makes everything
a little better. About 90 percent of mornings he wakes up SUPER happy and ready
to greet the day with the wide-eyed wonder that only a child can muster. I do a quick
stretch and head to his door. I always open it slowly, and am never greeted the same
way twice. Since I have been trying to pay attention (i.e., slow the fuck down), here is a
list of a few cute new words that have greeted me in the last few days:
• “Bottle” came on the morning when evidently milk was on his mind.
• “Soo-sur” (aka soother) came with vehement pointing the day he threw all
   THREE soothers onto the floor in the night.
• “Uh-owh” has come quite a few times, but I am not sure why

I then say “Good morning,” and he throws his arms around my neck. We have a quick
snuggle and read a book or play with some annoying sing-song toy that at any other
point in the day I want to send to Value Village. For some reason, in the morning, when
everything is new and I haven’t seen a vile diaper or had to throw out piles of floor food,
I feel like I can handle just about anything. My boy has soft morning hair and still needs
me for simple things, and I am trying to slow down and enjoy that.

I don’t always feel calm or serene, and W isn’t always smiling or clinging to my neck, but
first thing in the morning, before the day creeps in, he is my boy and I am his mom and
we are starting our days together. Thank you for helping me notice that, my dear, sweet
friend.

-Tightrope Mama

Just Like Mom

Summer is upon us, and I’m not looking forward to it, entirely. The thought of another summer spent with my mother is bringing Christmas to mind.

My mother spent this past Christmas in the hospital. “You and Prince Philip,” I tell her with a chuckle over the phone, because we’re Protestant and that’s how we deal with uncomfortable situations: via flippant comments, frequently regarding royalty. The reason for her hospitalization is a gathering cloud over the phone line, heavy with fear but unacknowledged, and only guessed at since it’s Christmas and all the lab people are on holiday. But inevitable, dreaded for years, she’s been sick twice before so it’s going to happen again, that’s just guaranteed. It’s the timing that’s the kicker, the news coming during a flying visit to the city to see her granddaughter and help her other daughter pick a wedding dress, delivered to her over cell phone at a party as she helped take Cookie’s coat and boots off, just a week before Christmas. (Why the sudden rush? She’s been complaining to the doctors since last February and they’ve been waving off her suspicions, so they must be seen to be responsive when it counts, I suppose.)

The other cloud hanging over our conversation is the fact that I can’t tell her that I love her and am terrified for her and for our family. It’s just not who we are with each other. My dad’s a different story: “I love you” comes easily to him, and aware that it’s not easy for us he says, offhandedly but significantly, “Yep, I’ll tell her you love her” after I say “Tell her we’re thinking of her” when she’s in surgery. So why can’t I tell my mother I love her?

This is a question I’ve been grappling with for months. For the past two summers I’ve spent several months with Cookie and my mother at our family retreat, our farm, and am about to do the same again, against my better judgment. The first summer, Cookie was brand new and I was glad for the guidance and support and my mom was glad to provide it. This past summer, my mother forgot the number one rule from the previous summer — only give advice when asked — and resented the couple nights I asked her to watch Cookie so I could go back to the city and try to reconnect with Cookie’s dad. Bitter comments followed my return each time, and the resentment on both sides grew over the course of the summer. By the end, anything she said to me in front of others was rude or critical (strangely, she was almost nice when we were alone), so I was ecstatic when she left. I now know that she was frightened and in pain the whole time (and why couldn’t she just tell me this?), but I’m still completely confused by how our relationship deteriorated, although not entirely surprised. To be honest, I was more surprised the previous summer when it did not deteriorate, since historically our limit seems to be two weeks’ uninterrupted time together. And that’s the extreme limit, the point at which silent treatments start. I’ve always speculated that the problem lies in how alike we are, and of course swore up and down after some particularly cruel comments that I would never treat my daughter the way she treats me. But, as inevitable as illness itself, we are destined to become just like our moms.

I am profuse and exhibitive with my affection for Cookie. I tell her several times a day I love her; I hug and kiss her every chance I get; I smile at her frequently and for no reason. And yet, I find myself at times shutting down in front of her or giving her mini versions of the silent treatment I’ve inherited from generations of women in my mother’s family, and it scares me. Was this how my mother was with me? Did she lavish me with love and attention when I was little? I can’t remember, but it’s quite possible. I was her first, and new, and adorable (weren’t we all?), so how could she resist? And if that’s the case, at what point did our current pattern develop? When my sister was born? When I became considerably less adorable, with glasses and braces? Or when I became a teenager and shut myself off from her? Whatever the cause, I’m determined to avoid it, but am terrified that I can’t. Much like the illness we’re faced with.

I recently worked on a project that had to do with this illness and alternative ways to treat it, and was inspired to tackle it myself in such a way, if it comes down to it. But I have a hard time sharing this knowledge with my mother, even though it could save her life. She’s skeptical; she’s been down the other road before (and look how that turned out, I argue); she’s more comfortable within the conventional system; and although she’s not afraid of change and newness, she’s not going to radically alter how she lives her life. These are my arguments to myself. I casually mention a woman in Owen Sound who has done phenomenal things; I consider my work done. But I swear to myself that I will change. I will look for a naturopath and take preventive measures. I will be strong enough to extricate myself from the system and visit the woman in Owen Sound if this ever happens to me. I will live a long, healthy life free of pain and fear and negativity and withheld affection. I will not be like my mom. Ironically, I feel that I owe her that.

-East End Mama

[image source: Andy Warhol Prints]

Superwoman

Spare time? Like fuck! In my spare time I try to sleep and eat and occasionally take a shower —though even that all gets short shrift.

I hate superwomen. I survived cancer without missing a beat — and for the most part without
missing a class in my last year of professional school. I had my tumour removed in between
applying and arranging interviews for my post-grad job placement. I did my interviews five days after surgery, on oxi, and landed the placement I wanted. I did chemo while keeping up with course work. I like to think of myself as strong, dedicated, and organized. But being a working mom is impossible.

I am a fighter, I take on any challenge put in front of me, and most of all I LOVED my job — pre-baby. Being a working mom is, and I will say it again, impossible. I now ask myself everyday what the hell I’m doing and why I bother. I buy lottery tickets in the hopes that one day I won’t have to do it all and worry about how to pay the bills. I would probably still do parts of my job voluntarily if I won millions, but I would do so on my own terms and without outside pressure.

I have taken off almost as many days in the last month as I’ve worked. I know this is not an
arrangement that works for me or for my office. I am sure there are co-workers who feel for
me, who help and pick up my slack, but there are also those who resent it. I thought I WAS
superwoman, but I now know she doesn’t exist. She is no more real than the tooth fairy.

Superwoman is a woman who climbs on the backs of other women — her nanny, her cleaning lady, her yoga instructor, and her executive assistant — and then claims victory.

I no longer strive, or believe it is possible, to be a good mother and a superwoman. I choose my baby, to hell with the rest of them, and watch out if you get in my way!

-Sleepwalking Mama

[image: Superwoman. Art by John Sikela. Source: Wikipedia]

The Moment

In the end it was a C-section. So we had to be at the hospital for at least five days for recovery, but it ended up being six because of the issues we had with breastfeeding. I, like many other women, wanted to give it my all in the breastfeeding department for many of the positive reasons out there. Being that most members of my immediate family and circle of friends (yes, this is sad) were very uncomfortable with the idea of breastfeeding, this determination of mine was very isolated. So my mission to breast feed and recover was a difficult journey and one that I want to share with you.

This is how I spent those six days after Lo was born:
• Grabbing my nipples.
• Squeezing my nipples and my son’s head simultaneously.
• Almost strangling my little one.
• Almost dropping my little one. Many times.
• Holding my arms at a 90 degree angle for hours.
• Attending numerous breastfeeding clinics.
• Trying out all the crazy external contraptions meant to assist in breastfeeding.
• Throwing the contraptions across the room.
• Milking...literally, with the support of a machine. (Disgusting!)
• Being naked from the waist up for most of the day.
• Yelling at the nurses to stop giving me conflicting advice.
• Giving nasty glares to a very inexperienced nurse who kept asking me, “Are you afraid to
go home?”
• Drinking a crap load of water, or any fluids (while dying for a glass of wine).
• Barely eating, because hospital food is sooo terrible.
• Barely sleeping, because we opted out of the private room. (Next time we will pay the
extra!)
• Sleeping in a very short hospital bed, with my partner stuck sleeping in a chair.
• Sitting or lying in a number of positions in the hopes of finding a comfortable one.
• Being unable to walk for at least four of those days.
• Popping very weak pills for pain.
• Fighting with my partner — in front of my parents (we were all crying by the end).
• Actually telling my partner, “You don’t have nipples so you don’t know what you’re
talking about” when he attempted to give me advice.
• Contemplating why the hell we started this whole thing in the first place.
• Thanking my sister and wondering what I would have done if she had not been there.
• Crying — both happy and sad.
• Feeling disappointed that I did not get to hold my baby on my chest after the birth.
• Feeling proud of myself.
• Feeling proud of my partner for not falling to the ground when he saw my opened belly.
• Wondering who my little boy will be.

Within the chaos and blur there was a moment of clarity and peace that gave me the courage
and confidence to realize that everything would eventually be okay. It was the morning of our
last day at the hospital. I was exhausted, I had still not mastered breastfeeding, Lo was still
losing weight, the nurses were as confusing as ever, the lactation consultant was away, and I was scared to go home (that nurse was right).

It was about five in the morning, my partner had passed out in the chair beside the bed, and
a nurse came in and encouraged me to lay Lo on my chest so he could sleep and I could
lie down and rest. (Finally some good advice.) As I lay there all cozy with my new family, I
experienced this overwhelming feeling of calm. I looked out the window and noticed the sun
peeking between the buildings. An angelic stream of light shone through, and in that moment I had a feeling that everything was going to be okay: I will make it through, and we as a family will be okay.

And then we slept for five blissful hours.

-Gray Mama

[sunshine onesie by: iota illustration]

Does This Pig Look Like She’s Sleeping?

To sleep or not to sleep. Is that a question? Really? It feels like it’s not an option. To
sleep, perchance to dream — as if. When was the last time I actually slept enough to
have a dream? Why does that pig look like she's sleeping? She's not. I am inside her
head. I can hear her brain. It is humming: “Stop sucking and maybe I can get some
sleep…errr…Oh, just want to sleep…whirr…I’d like to sleep…I could shake them all
off…but then they’d scream and I’d have to get up with them and oh what a bother, I
should have listened when they said ‘Don’t let them in the bed with you because you’ll
never get them out!’"

She’s not sleeping. I know she’s not.

This is what I was going to write about. The main topics the Mamas and I have
discussed over our time together include sleep, feeding, sex, and personal sacrifice. And
love. Half of it, the Sweet. The other half, the Sour. Sometimes, on my own, I focus on
the sour and I forget all about the sweet.

Yesterday I met with a friend who informed me and another friend that she had had her
fifth miscarriage. This came crashing in. It was not meant to be the focus of the meeting.
We had no idea. She had listened to me go on and on about my sleep troubles with
the Guppins, and our other girlfriend had talked about her relationship, home, work, the
usual, when this beautiful, busy, in-demand artist friend of ours, this gorgeously patient,
loving being, the woman who I have chosen to look after my daughter should my partner
and I End, just sort of tells us.

a heartbeat
we hold out arms
we hold back what tears we can
we grieve instantly
she tells us she thinks they were twins
we bow our heads
she tries to smile
we hold on
we hold on.

I forget about the pig. I forget about everything I hardly deserve the right to have. With
my blundering and accidental happiness. It’s not fair.

-Drama Mama

We Need to Talk About This Movie

Lionel Shriver’s novel, We Need to Talk About Kevin, is now a movie. I remember when the
book came out. I was in London, where they actually advertise books that are intelligent and
well written, so there were posters all over the Tube. My sister bought it. I was curious, but my bedside table was already full.

Years passed, and then I found out I was pregnant. It was a surprise, and not automatically
joyous news, so I took a rather sardonic view of the whole experience. My reading tends to
reflect my mental state, so I borrowed my sister’s copy of Kevin. (I also read Dante’s Divine
Comedy while I was pregnant, so I do know exactly which level of hell unbaptized children
end up in, Reverend Matt.) And I really enjoyed the book. I understood the mother’s conflicted emotions, I shared her hopes and fears, and I was completely caught up in the drama. Despite the obvious parallel to my own life (the having-a-child bit), I felt removed enough from the story that I didn’t relate to the more horrific aspects of it. I recommended the book to anyone who would ask — except other pregnant women. Not everyone is as insensitive as I am, after all.

But now that it’s a movie, I’m avoiding it at all costs. My husband suggested we see it, and my immediate reaction was, “No, no way.” He looked at me a little strangely, then went on with whatever he was doing. I, however, have been analyzing my reaction ever since.

How come I am horrified by the prospect of watching this movie? I have three theories:
anticipation, association, and just plain old creepiness.

Anticipation because I know how it’s all going to play out, and I don’t want to be around for that. It reminds me of the second time I saw The Shining. The first time I saw it, I didn’t find it the least bit scary. The second time I saw it, I knew what was going to happen and I couldn’t watch, didn’t want to see the creepy twin girls, or the torrents of blood, or Shelley Duvall. That may be what’s happening here. I know that that precious mother-and-child relationship will be doomed from the start, and that terrible things will happen to people who don’t deserve it, and that the mother will be helpless in the face of it all. And I don’t want to think about any of those things.

Association because I first encountered this story when I was newly pregnant with Cookie, and I’m afraid that reliving the horrors of it will colour my view of Cookie, or of my pregnancy, or of me. And because now I’m firmly entrenched in parenthood and can relate to the character’s deep love of her little girl and her paralyzing fear for her daughter’s safety.

Plain old creepiness because it’s a horror movie, at heart, and I’m so over horror movies. I’m
tired of being pointlessly scared. The trailer is certainly creepy enough.

I think it’s all three. But I’m curious about how other parents feel about watching movies or
reading books with tragic parent-and-child relationships in them. I’m now terrified of a lot of
books that before I wouldn’t have thought twice about picking up. One Halloween I watched
Dawn of the Dead with a bunch of friends. One of them was pregnant and tired, so she went to bed before we even started the movie. When the zombie-baby birth scene came, her husband said, “Man, I’m glad she wasn’t here to see that.” This from a couple that was referring to their unborn child as “Spawn of Satan,” so I shot him an “as if” look. I’m a little more sympathetic now. I think I could still handle that scene, but there’s a lot I can’t handle. One of my fellow mamas can’t watch Intervention because they always show pictures of the crack addicts as adorable babies, and it reminds her how even her sweet child could end up down the wrong path. I think a lot about how Hitler was probably an adorable toddler, more than I should.

We Need to Talk About Kevin is a complex, intense book richly deserving of the accolades it
has garnered. It seems the movie is following in its footsteps. But I will not be watching it.

-East End Mama

Powerless

I just found out I didn’t get a job in the small Ontario town where I am moving with
Sir Dick and the Guppins.

In the small Ontario town, there is only one game that suits my profession and it’s
a biggie.

It was a good position, one that I felt I deserved, and indeed I was short-listed.

It’s possible that, had I not been woefully sleep-deprived and vaguely depressed,
I may have had the energy to prep more for the telephone interview. Prepped at
all, really. Okay, I would say by my standards I winged it. And I blew it. I wasn’t
surprised to get the very polite, if not encouraging, rejection letter. It would have
made things easy. Things haven’t been easy, professionally. I work in the arts.
Which is what I was doing when I was pregnant — discovered I was pregnant.
I was on track to take over a fantastic position. I was being groomed. I found
out I was pregnant exactly one week after my first day covering my colleagues’
maternity leave who would soon be resigning. I had driven across the continent
with belongings and dog with the full intention of moving, forever.

It took me a while to figure out what was going on; I thought maybe it was
menopause. Not unheard of at age 40. My older, wiser friend urged a pregnancy
test. Ridiculous, I thought. It’s the flu.

But no, I was pregnant. I phoned Sir Dick, he reacted negatively, and I cut him
out of my life. How could I do this to him? 3,000 kilometres’ distance, and a lot
of ignored emails. I was experiencing an extreme sense of self-preservation- it
apparently kicks in with pregnancy. A friend described it as “the bullshit meter” in
low tolerance/ high detection mode.

While I was pregnant, I planned. I planned to get my job. I planned childcare, I
planned finances, I planned letters of reference, and I planned an amazing plan.
I made the final interview. It was down to three. It should have been a slam dunk.
I flew home to have the baby, prepared to fly back in five months to start my job,
single mother, Leader, actualized woman of the millennium.

But it didn’t happen. For some horrible terrible tragic reason it didn’t happen.
Despite the fact that I put in ten hours a day for seven months, worked my butt
off, worked my relationships, raised funds for the company, and weathered crisis
after crisis. I lived like pioneer in a cabin in the woods with a wood stove and
no electricity, chopping kindling, getting my water delivered in a garbage can.

(At this point you might be asking what is it exactly that would make her want
this job, right? I know.) I gave it my all. I did my best. But they gave the job to
someone else.

What followed was devastation, pure and simple. And no one back home could
understand. Because I had done it alone. I had planned alone, and I lost alone.

I am not seven months pregnant at this interview. …no, this time my rising belly
gives no rising questions. This time I want the job less. It’s an easier job, easier
than full-time mothering. I would have Sir Dick living with me, helping. I would
have support in this small Ontario town.

But not to be.

The Guppins recently began throwing little fits. Tossing her self on the floor and
scooting away from me. Crying out.

“She’s not even two,” I question a friend.

She tells me,

“At this age, they begin to discover how they are powerless.”

I am more careful. I no longer expect The Guppins to do what I want, what is
convenient. I try to provide options. I am more careful. “She is not a sack of
potatoes,” I tell myself. “I can’t just toss her around.”

And I never leave her alone.

The tantrums are becoming less frequent.

So how do I stop tearing myself up inside? Banging my fists? Crying out?

I tell my Momma friends the advice I try so hard to give to myself:

Be gentle. Tell yourself you love yourself many, many times a day. Say it out
loud even though it feels stupid. I love you I love you I love you. We are our best
advocate and friend. We are our biggest critic.

And if my Grey Mamma can take the easy-ride seat for pregnant ladies even though she isn't pregnant anymore, but then one morning turn it around and bravely tell some lady to F off because she’s NOT pregnant, then I can deal with this. I can deal with being powerless.
I can turn it around.

-Drama Mama

I Don’t Know How She Does It

Last night, after Lo was in bed and I had tidied up, put a load of laundry in,
poured myself a glass of wine, and wrapped myself up in a very cozy housecoat,
I rented a movie. I decided to rent I Don’t Know How She Does It  with SJP. I was in the mood to watch Carrie all growed up!

As I lay there with eyes barely open, I found myself getting very irritated as it became
VERY clear how Carrie does it. She does it with

• a nanny
• money
• an assistant
• available grandparents
• a nice house
• great schools
• a car
• a good job
• a supportive husband
• a best friend who has it worse off (always good for the ego)
• and of course…beautiful clothes and shoes (so predictable).

The list could go on…

This movie was so self-indulgent to the point of insulting. I am sure the purpose of the
movie was to show the plight of the mother in modern society — a movie for all of us
tired moms, so we can put our feet up and say “Yeah, how do we do this?” But all this
movie really accomplishes is to show that even rich, married, educated, supported
women struggle with being a mother. Duh!!

I just wish for once there was actually a movie about how the everyday woman struggles
with being a mother. A movie that portrays strength instead of weakness, a movie
that portrays the journey of discovery instead of helplessness, a movie that shows the
struggles while sharing the message that it is okay to struggle…instead of always trying
to keep it together.

Okay, okay...in the end, because Carrie is so educated, smart, resourceful, and
practical, she does break the glass ceiling, but does it really take a nanny, an assistant,
grandparents, a best friend, a boss who is in love with you, and a partner to do that?

If so, I am screwed.

-Gray Mama