June, 2009

Cerebral contusion from head trauma – any other visible injury?, originally uploaded by robhengxr.

I need to repeat that for the grandmothers and grandfathers who read this blog. This isn’t Franklin’s brain. We did not get his head x-rayed.

However, I think there is some kind of Medical Clinic ju ju fairy that read my last post and thought, “Oh yeah? Let’s see about that….” because where did I go today? Yes, a medical clinic.

This one was pretty good, I think. At least, it was good from the point of view of competent nurses and a doctor that probably liked his job. However, in the “Let’s Patronize the Obviously Worried Mother” category, it failed miserably.

I’m not an idiot. I know head injuries can be bad or they can just look bad. I’ve dropped my child on the floor before, I’ve done the google homework.

So, Franklin conked his noggin. I’m worried about him. It’s a large knock and I’m still not totally sure how it all happened. I have images of him flying through the air and bouncing off the side of the slide he apparently hit. The actually version of the story goes something along the lines of running without looking where he was going and ramming himself into the underside of the slide.

That’s a major goose egg to inflict upon yourself without the aid of gravity and projectile though.

sigh

I’m tired. I’m just finishing up at work and I’m heading home to give Eliza antibiotics and wake up Franklin to make sure he still knows his name.

I see more evening shifts in my future.

Iris Evans has cursed me for thinking I could be a working mother.
Damn you, Iris.

London Pink Eye, originally uploaded by LondonSLR.

Sometimes you just need to flog, trudge, stamp and weep through a week. This week was the weeper, the trudger, the flogger and most definitely the stamper.

Saturday, the beginning of Father’s Day weekend. We had such plans. Actually, we didn’t have any plans. We were going to make it “his day” and we were going to take it all outside. It was going to be relaxed and wonderful and calm and totally a Dad kind-of day.

Then pink eye happened.
Then everything went pete tong. Dammit.

For the past week I’ve been staying at home during the day and going to work at night. I’m not cut out for these 20 hour shifts. Seriously.

Right now I’m finishing up what’s left of a whacked out week. I no longer know if I’m coming or going. Tomorrow, Dickson promises a sleep in but I’m reluctant to even take it. It’s been so crazy I want some lazy time with the family. A family that is now free of colds, pink eyes, ear infections and diaper rash. We are also free of school homework and Aikido lessons and the navigation of Grade One emotional politics that I always seem shocked at and unprepared to advise. Who said boys were easier?

Eliza had pink eye and poor medical advise, herself. This was the culprit, really. Kids get pink eye but kids don’t usually have pink eye for a week while the pus travels from her eyes to her ears and her chest. Itchy footed pus comes from general antibiotic ointment that wouldn’t fight off Perez Hilton, nevermind toddler pink eye.

I. Will. Never. Take. My. Child. To. A. Medical. Clinic. Again.

We have an amazing doctor. She makes time for people and she squeezes babies in with no wait. Why would we ever go back to a medical clinic and some schlep who doesn’t know us, could care less about us and who probably resents that he’s working on a Saturday only to look at people who stepped on a nail over the weekend while drunk and now wants to know if the swelling and gangrene is a bad sign? A trip to the family doctor on Thursday and she’s already eons better than before.

This is it, the third times a charm and the straw that broke the camel’s back. Not again, friends. I will always be ready for a Canadian Medical System Love In but medical clinics are really chapping my ass these days.

The other day I was at a staff barbeque and co-workers were getting all friendly and attempting casual conversation that didn’t have anything to do with work, work drama, or work gossip. It was going fairly well. I work with what seems so far (I’ve come back from maternity leave only a short while ago to an almost complete staff turnover) to be a very excellent group of people.

However, what do people trying to be social find as the default conversation with me? My babies. Franklin and Eliza.

Isn’t it hard to leave them?
Wouldn’t you rather be at home?
Is she having a hard time at daycare?
Are you coping okay?

I can understand this curiosity. From the people with no kids, it is a little more rare. From the mothers who are in the office, it’s almost the first thing they talk about. I think they’ve been working for awhile, it’s a busy time, it’s stressful right now and they have forgotten what it means to stay at home. The “Momversation” video above isn’t all that great. All those women are working as “Mom Bloggers” as Daphne points out. They are writers and usually writers who either work from home or work casually outside the home. For me, these aren’t “working mothers”. They are extremely talented, extremely privileged people who really weren’t able to have an actual in depth conversation about being a working mother because they really aren’t.

To me, a working mother makes lunches and plans breakfast and dinner the night before. They spend their evening drinking wine while relaxing to the rhythmic motion of mopping the floor or lint brushing the carpet to avoid waking the kids with the vacuum at 11 o’clock at night. Working mothers don’t work overtime after 5pm. Working mothers go home and eat dinner, do homework, read stories, play climb the cushions and do the laundry between 5pm and the 7pm bedtime. Then they go back to work after kissing their partner (if they have one – or kiss their babysitter, whatever) and do the extra 2 or so hours of work that needs to be done.

But yes, it makes me a better version of me. There is pride, there is intellectual stimulation, there is adult conversation, there is job advancement. These are things most Stay-At-Home-Moms and Work-At-Home-Moms get as well, but sometimes achieving this is more complicated. In a way, I’m getting it easy. And I’m serious when I say that.

I was talking to another mother at Franklin’s Aikido class on Friday afternoon – the class I leave early to attend with him and what I have worked overtime to be able to do. Her son is 7 and her daughter is 3 days younger than Eliza (15 months). She went back to work full time as well – and also with somewhat flexible hours. She made a good point that I’ve been thinking about more and more. We had our sons and we went back to work. We were ourselves for 5 years – our definition of ourselves as mothers was working and parenting. This fulfilled us and showed us that this form of parenting worked for us. Now with our second child, at a time when many mothers start to make the leap into staying at home (many times for simple child care cost reasons) it seems foreign.

We don’t pay two sets of daycare fees.
We don’t have two kids in diapers.
We don’t have sleepless nights with two children.

Franklin is largely independent. His time at Out of School Care is spent careening through forests, exploring beaches, learning jedi dodge ball and making balloon rocket ships. His after school time spent with me before this came along? “Shhhhh, the baby is sleeping.”

Seriously. This is me. This is how our family works. It’s not for everyone but it works for us. Franklin is a well adjusted, social, happy kid who knows how to navigate society. Would he do so well hanging out with me? Perhaps. Would he see a lot more of me being tired, cranky, annoyed and thirsty for some “Me Time”? Absolutely.

This working gig. It works for me. It makes me a better version of me.

Great hammerhead shark (Sphyrna mokarran), originally uploaded by echeng.

Last night I was reading to Franklin about Hammerhead sharks. We were on the Mighty Hunters chapter of this shark book and on each shark they compare the size of the animal to the size of a ten year old boy. I’m not exactly sure why it was a boy. It always seems to be a boy. He’s got a series of these books, from Dinosaurs to Sharks, and they always compare the size of the animal to a 10 year old boy. I suppose if you gotta pick a target audience, it would be a 10 year old boy?

Yeah…. Well, I can see it. I don’t have to like it and I might know a good many girls and boys of various ages who enjoy the book, but I understand.

Did you know Hammerhead sharks (like children who appreciate nature books) also come in a variety of sizes? Well, they do. They range from small sharks called bonnetheads and scoopheads, to large smooth hammerheads and scalloped hammerheads. The largest of all is the massive great hammerhead, which can grow as long as 6 metres and weigh more than 450 kg. #CliffordCClavinJrFTW

When comparing the 1.4 metre ten year old boy to the three chosen sizes of sharks the book mentions that each shark, a bonnethead, a great and a scalloped hammerhead, is specifically the average size of a female shark. Franklin, fed with society’s presumptions that everything large and powerful is represented as male, wondered why they would show the sizes of females.

“I’m not absolutely positive, Franklin, but perhaps they wanted to show the largest version of each shark.”

“But the largest version of a shark wouldn’t be a female.”

“Really? Are you sure?”
(and inside I’m wondering just how hard it would really be for me to stop working and start home schooling because wtf did he just say?)

“I think so…”
(he’s sensing he’s about to be corrected here. He is his father’s son)

“Franklin. Females are tough. Females are mothers. Females give birth. Females take care of their young. Females do the hunting and the feeding and the protecting of their family. Not every female has a pride or a pack or a partner. Being a female is hard work. You have to be strong and powerful.”

“hmmm. That’s cool.”

“Totally.”

Lurie Garden at night, originally uploaded by wvallen.

So I’m a night gardener. I think I would like this new hobby it if I wasn’t freaked out half the time by well-meaning Australian dog walking men asking about my gardening theories through the chain link fence.These sorts of occasions make me wish I had an instant “ring” button on the cell phone so I could pretend that someone was home waiting up for me and would miss me if anyone decided I might be easily chucked into the university refuse pile behind the buildings next door.

Of course, that would definitely be all pretend because in reality, by the time I get home, Dickson has crashed and I’m left in a quiet house with my work files and the computer.

Like right now, to be precise.

He wouldn’t really know if I was home until morning, really.

When we were first married I had a job at a night club on campus. “Night club” is an odd name for the place but I don’t know exactly what it was. There were live bands (fyi – Black Francis is an awesome person but Sloane are a bunch of pretentious assholes) as well as the Drink-Your-Face-Off-And-Dance-To-Horribly-Loud-Music scene. Basically, it was a large bar. A large, sticky, run down bar that apparently has been turned into a cafeteria. Odd.

Anyway… back to the story….

My first shift there went longer than I had anticipated. I ended up staying for a few hours longer and I had told Dickson I would be home by 11pm. When I got in at 1am I found him cooking curry stew with food everywhere, he’s pacing back and forth and had consumed “a few too many”. So sweet, right? He cared. He was worried. He tried to take his mind off of the fact that his bride was AWOL with a few shots of rye and a curry feast… (?).

Whatever. I thought it was more than adorable.

Fast forward 11 years (our anniversary was on the 6th of June) and I’m having weird conversations about the growing season of artichoke at midnight with a bored middle aged man while my husband saws logs with our children tucked in safely at home.

Times change.

Seriously. Jonas Brothers?
and he’s good looking…

oh my word, what have I done to my brain.

"Odd One Out"!!!!, originally uploaded by Pamela B.

I spent my lunch hour planting soy beans, watering some community plots and cutting the grass around my plot. It’s hot outside. Muggy and hot. H.O.T. It’s hot. Baby, it’s hot outside…

When I returned to the office a competent professional, I had a one inch mud line on my heels. So classy. My clerk even tried to discretely tell me about a smudge of mud on my wrist during a meeting. Just call me Cathleen Black. Ms. Black with sweaty armpits and fingers that smell of sea soil.

Coming from the garden is usually a nice, calm re-entry into work. I’m usually refreshed. I can still smell the oregano I seem to constantly clip back so other plants can see the light of day and I like the fact that I need to quickly slip into the bathroom with a fingernail brush.

So far this year, this is not the case with the garden. So far it’s a rush of watering and cutting and mending and planting for other plots and other plants and other people’s grass. Much like my work life (as it is busy this time of year), I’m catching up in the wee hours and trekking over to the garden with a high powered flashlight in order to get some grass mowed or clipped.

Speaking of grass.
I hate it.

I want it gone from our community garden. It is a hassle to constantly mow it down and our second hand weed wacker just went kerplunk so we are kicking it old skool with big honking clippers and a push mower. There is too much grass to handle with manual power – especially when most of the plot renters only seem to have time to plant and water, never mind tend to the surrounding areas.

Not that this isn’t in their agreement.
Not that they haven’t been reminded of this.

Not that they care, more like.

Someone tell me why I became the site coordinator of this garden. I need reminding because right now I’m pooped and constantly feeling like I can’t get enough done. Resume? Educational opportunity? Garden friendship? Gratitude? Pride? I’m not feeling any of these right now.

Deep Breath.