Mother's Little Helper

Many of us moms have our poison. No secret there!

A good friend of mine—it's a friend, it's not me— has little cigarette cases of pot stashed all over her house. Yet another formed a private, moms-only stoner yoga group. Other moms become masters of entertaining so they can regularly imbibe. Some don't even bother with the entertaining bit.

These are all great options, but in my opinion, nothing beats a Claritin high.

The active ingredients are loratadine and pseudoephedrine. I'm not sure if it's just the pseudoephedrine that makes it like over-the-counter speed, or if it's the one-two combo.

All I can say is, that is some good shit. And it's legal! And you can be on it all day and no one will notice!

I can focus, stay on-task. Gone is the semi-depression, the feelings of being overwhelmed by menial tasks, for not doing more with my life, for allowing myself to sink into an endless spiral of laundry, dishes, and groceries. Gone is the guilt when I ignore my kids in favor of doing chores.

On Claritin, stuff gets done.

In my normal state of mind, I often set a timer to do tasks so I don't get sidetracked. Yes, it is that bad. Fifteen minutes, say, to do the dishes and wipe the counter tops.

But then the inevitable distractions pile up—kids, chocolate, really important Facebook updates from my hilarious friends. Suddenly it's half an hour later, my timer went off long ago, and in the sink is a cold, murky pool filled with dishes.

With Claritin, I ignore all distractions, zip through the dishes in the target time or less, scrub the sink until it shines, wipe down counter tops, and suddenly know what to do with all the kitchen flotsam—plastic lids with no bottoms, jars with no lids, tiny bits of Playmobil—that can migrate around the kitchen for weeks. Garbage! All of it!

The meds are so helpful that I once asked my doctor if I could be on them permanently.

“You know, all year?” I said. “Even when I don't have allergies. They just make me feel...normal.”

She scrutinized me for a moment. It looked like she might push a big, red panic button under her desk.

“Nooo,” she finally said, using a tone fit for small children, dogs and the mentally unstable. “You really can't do that.”

Allergy season is waning now for me. It was about a week ago that I last took Claritin. Extra-Strength Non-Drowsy plus two espressos. I was pushing the margin. Feeling a little intense. Sweating a lot.

It's a bit of a blur now but I know what I accomplished from what the place looked like later that day. Closet cleared. Old bills shredded. Kitchen spotless. I killed it.

“Did the cleaning lady come?” asked my eldest when she came home from school later that day. We haven't had a cleaning lady in two years.

“No honey,” I said. “Mommy did it!”

She eyed me suspiciously, and went on her way.

Whining

At the beginning of the school year—kindergarten for one, grade 2 for the other—my girls used to set their own alarm clocks, get into their clothes, and go down for breakfast on their own.

Sometime during the dark winter months, their enthusiasm waned. They seemed to understand something about the bleakness of routine.

“Monday again,” I could almost hear them saying, with all the cynicism of a civil servant. If they could have taken a 30-minute coffee break at school, they would have. They began sleeping through their alarms, then not setting them at all. 

“School is great!” I tried saying one morning. “You're lucky to be able to go! Do you know that just 100 years ago, many children your age had to go to work to help their families? In Victorian England, kids used to work in factories from morning to night. They used to fall asleep on the job because their shifts were so long. They were often freezing cold where they worked. Sometimes the machines they worked on were hosed down with water, and the kids got hosed down too!”

“They got sprayed with a hose?” one daughter said.

“Fun!” said the other. They looked at each other and giggled at the thought. Probably they were picturing Victorian factories as places with lots of awesome steam engines and a Wet Banana.

I had to face it. They just didn't care about school. Sure, it was fine once they were there. But it was the getting there that was the trouble.

There began a slow erosion of all the good habits I thought were firmly established.

First they got cranky over spilling breakfast cereal to the point where they declared they couldn't pour it for themselves anymore. 

No, it wasn't as clear-cut as a declaration. It wasn't simply, “I can't do this, Mum.” It was, “I caaaaan't doooo iiiiiit,” in those little high-pitched drill voices.

Whining. Times three. Arms limp and uncooperative at their sides, eyes downcast, faces long with disappointment.

Then the oldest one rebelled against oatmeal, "It's just so musheeeee." So they all wouldn't eat it.

Next thing I knew, I was dragging each one of them out of bed, choosing their clothes, pouring their cereal and milk to a morning chorus of, "I hate schoooool," and "Why do I haaaave to go?" It was a full-on regression. My low point was making pancakes on a weekday morning to cheer them up. I even gave them extra maple syrup when they asked.

I'm not sure how it happened. It was all very subversive. But somewhere along the way I lost control of mornings and became a sort of reluctant maid.

Actually, I do know how it happened. It was the power of whining. I would do anything to avoid it. Scoff all you like, but think back to the last time you called a friend who had kids whining in the background. Did you want to stay on the phone and chat?

I'm still choosing outfits for the eight-year-old daughter. The last time I did it I got something wrong.

“Why didn't you bring me socks?!” she shouted indignantly.

I threw a pair of socks at her and thought, “I reeeeally shouldn't be doing this. This is baaaad parenting.” Even my own thoughts were whining at me.

“Not those ones!” she said, deeply offended by the striped socks I'd picked out.

I went into the middle daughter's room.

“I need tiiiights,” she whined. The temperature was close to 24 C at 7 a.m. and the high was going to be 30.

“You don't need tights today,” I said.

“But I'm cooold, Mama.” I went to the basement and got her tights out of the dryer.

I thought, “So this is what it is to crack up.” I just couldn't take the whining anymore. I would do anything to stop it. Give them candy, buy bubble gum. Pay them $5 to clean up their rooms. Let them off the hook when they whined that it was their sister who had messed up their room. Somehow give them money anyway. If they asked me in that voice to get a pony for the back yard, I probably would. They had won.

“Maybe they could kill me,” was my fleeting, early morning, pre-coffee thought yesterday. With that whine, anything seemed possible.“Nah,” I said to myself. But I knew I had to regain control of mornings.

I stumbled down the stairs, and prepared a full-court press against the kids. My only defense against the whine was the angry lecture.

"You kids need to learn responsibility," I began, pious finger raised. But I stopped short.

It was a miracle.

The girls had had the wherewithal to sleep in their clothes and woke up fully dressed. The boy, at just-four, was busy putting on socks with great effort, like an old man. It was the final touch on his outfit. Every single item including underwear was either inside out or backwards. I reveled in the fact that there were no kids to dress, and thus no whining for the moment, and left him alone.

Track Meet

Yesterday was my eight-year-old daughter's first track meet.

I learned about it purely by accident. While clearing out her backpack, I decided it was time to get rid of all the crumpled pieces of paper that line the bottom of her bag.

One of them was a form that allowed her to attend the meet.

“This is so exciting!” I said, remembering my own sprinting days fondly through the misty lens of nostalgia. You know, the one that filters out the long, anxious waits before your event, the fear of coming in last, or in my case, spending hours in the bathroom with a stomach full of nerves.

“I don't want to go,” my daughter said. “I really can't pass the baton.”

“You've been chosen to represent your school, honey,” I said. “This is a big honor.” Her event was the 4x100 relay which meant, I explained, that she was part of a team. She couldn't let her team down.

"But I need shorts!" she said.

It just so happened that I had bought her a pair of pink-and-turquoise running shorts a month earlier, in anticipation for summer, and promptly forgot about them. I presented the shorts to her now, as her special running shorts.

"I love them!" she said, and immediately put them on. "They're perfect!" There couldn't have been a better coincidence.

Next morning, I took her to school to catch the 7:45 a.m. team bus to Varsity Stadium. It was windy and chilly, and my big girl was suddenly the smallest one in the crowd. She was uncharacteristically quiet, and looked terribly nervous and shy.

Her event wasn't until lunch time. By the time I got there, the place was packed with about a thousand students and parents. Finding one child? Forget it.

I stood around, feeling the nerves again, hoping she was being looked after in this overwhelming crowd, and hoping I could position myself at the right spot on the track so I could watch her run by.

They lined up the Grade 2 teams, but I couldn't see my daughter. Then they were off. I could barely see the first two runners on the opposite side of the track, but by the time the baton was going to the third runner, I recognized the pink and turquoise shorts.

Her team was fast but, just like she said, she really couldn't pass the baton. Or receive it, for that matter. None of them could. When the number two runner approached to pass it to her, my daughter stopped running, turned around to face her teammate, took the baton, did a little skipping dance while turning around again, then bolted to catch up with the other runners.

"She still has those cheeks," I thought, as I saw her run past, her little face scrunched up against the sunlight. Then she and the fourth runner, in a comic jumble of arms, hands and fingers, somehow got the baton off again.

They didn't drop it.

I couldn't have been more proud of my girl. I called her off the track when the race was done, and she came over and let me give her a hug, before she walked off again.

"Honey," I called to her, but she was small and quick, and slipped easily through the crowd. I pushed through aggressively to keep up with her.

"Sweetie!"

“I need to find my school,” she said when I finally caught up.

Of course. They would need to account for her. And she would need her ribbon. I followed her to the north end of the track where we finally found one of her teachers. She gave my daughter a big hug, and presented her with a light blue ribbon. Eighth place. Dead last.

Another teacher, eyes bulging wide with stress, proceeded to chew me out. She scolded me for taking my daughter off the track and causing a panic when the officials couldn't find her.

"I didn't know I couldn't walk with her! There were officials who saw me take her!" I said. "I didn't even know about this meet until yesterday!"

The teacher narrowed her eyes at me. The panic of her own potential ineptitude was now no longer the issue, and she was assessing just what kind of parent she was dealing with.

"You need better communication with the parents!" I shouted. Her features suddenly softened. This was clearly a refrain she was familiar with and she flashed her "sympathetic nod" response. I realized she had sized me up as the one of the most reviled creatures in the school system: The Helicopter Mom.

At that point, we both heard my daughter's voice.

"See?" she said to her friends. She had been talking to her friends who had finished their events.

“Eighth!” she said, beaming, and proudly held up her ribbon.

The Dark Side of Neuroplasticity

There's a lot of hype these days about neuroplasticity. It's an amazing feat of the brain that allows it to change itself in response to new experiences. So much so that it can even learn to restructure neural pathways after brain damage incurred from a stroke or brain injury.

That's great for stroke victims. Sucks for parents with small children, though—especially those of us who stay at home and therefore spend way too much time with them.

Before kids I was happy, bright and focused. I could spend hours absorbed in my work, or a book. But since kids my neuroplastic brain has turned to silly putty.

Part of the problem with many moms is that we care too much. We engage.

We get involved in petty squabbles between siblings, hunt for a missing sock for much, much longer than we should. 

Worst of all, we keep trying to answer those baffling questions kids blindside us with. Questions that on the surface seem answerable, but, like a Chinese finger puzzle, become harder the more you try.

For example, my eldest daughter asked this over breakfast yesterday, as I was trying to figure out what to pack in her lunch box:

“Why are there days of the week?”

My answer: “Uhhh...because—well, if you divide the year up...” but it was too long a response time, and they lost interest. To be honest, so did I.

Then, from her four-year-old brother: “Why can't we have Fruit Loops for breakfast?” (with a look of genuine disappointment, like we had never had the discussion.)

“Fruit Loops aren't a healthy breakfast.”

“Why aren't Fruit Loops healthy?”

“Well, there's something called high-fructose corn syrup, and...” Blank stares.

I was in the middle of thinking, “I know I'm smarter than this,” when the middle child suddenly remembered something.

“Mom, Mom, MOM!!” she shouted. “Can we make a crazy sandwich and online it to iCarly?”

At the time this statement was impossible for me to translate. I had no idea what my daughter was talking about. Still, a less emotionally-invested person (i.e. any male relative) would simply say, “Yes!” and let the kids just try to follow through on it.

But it wasn't that simple for me. I was concerned about the mess that could possibly ensue from letting kids make any sandwich, let alone a crazy one. Then there would probably be some attempt to stuff the sandwich into the computer. It was over. I was engaged.

I tried to answer, and felt a thick, sleepy fog descend over me. I asked about the episode of iCarly, then went through a lengthy explanation about why you can't “online” a sandwich, expounded upon what being online really means and, finally, dealt with the resulting disappointment about the matter.

By the end I was sunk deep into a mental quagmire and barely able to remember the names of my own children, let alone what I should pack for my daughter's lunch.

This is not the case for dads.

They just seem to lack the part of the brain that gets all wound up about explaining things. They care less. They are less engaged. That whole “emotionally unavailable” thing that men have? Turns out it's not a handicap! It's a cunning self-defense mechanism against the darker side of neuroplasticity.

For as many moms know, though you might have been a successful criminal prosecutor, a star chemical engineer or, as in my case, an almost-award-winning financial journalist, you will wave goodbye to any intellect you had when you leave your job and spend large amounts of time with small children.

But it's OK, because by the time the last of that intellect permanently evaporates, you won't even remember that old you.

Discipline and Celebrity Dolphins

In mid-December of last year, when the agony of getting the kids into three layers of clothing every morning reached peak intensity, I had an epiphany.

My usual approach to get everyone out the door on time--loud, accusatory sighs, shouting, arm-waving, and then a final, angry lecture--wasn't working so well. 

"Be more strict," my husband offered as he flew down the stairs, past the mayhem and out the door on his way to work. It was his way of helping.

As for the kids, they seemed mildly entertained. They would get progressively goofier and sillier as my own frustration increased, like rebellious baboons banding together under threat of a screaming chimp.

By the time we all traipsed into school late, the kids actually thought it was all quite fun. They found camaraderie with other late kids. My youngest, not yet in kindergarten, demanded the school secretary give him a late slip, too, so he could be like his big sisters. 

Clearly, I needed a new approach. I flipped through my mental catalog of Supernanny episodes, and decided a reward system would work better.

The kids had recently seen the movie A Dolphin Tale. It tells the true story of a dolphin named Winter who, as a wee dolphin calf, got caught in a crab trap in the Gulf of Mexico, then washed ashore near Clearwater, Florida. 

Beached, and with a gravely wounded, infected tail, the dolphin seemed doomed. Winter was rescued, but her infected tail had to go. The dolphin vet at Clearwater had to amputate.

Of course, a dolphin sort of needs a tail. A good, strong tail, one might say, is a dolphin's raison d'etre. Without one, a dolphin won't be able to swim, hunt for food, or attract a mate. So the staff at the Clearwater Marine Aquarium made her a prosthetic tail.

The movie was a big hit. Love triumphs over Darwinism.

It just so happens that the Clearwater Aquarium is about two hours' drive from the place we stay when we go to Florida for March break, which we were doing this year.

I told the kids that we could go see the dolphin if we all got to school on time, most days of the week, until March break.

I still did my fair share of arm waving and shouting, but now I added “And don't you want to see Winter?” to the mix. 

It worked. When I reminded the kids of their favorite celebrity dolphin, they tried harder, and most days we made it on time.

So, when we finally got to Florida several months later, we were on the hook. 

“We're not really taking them to see an amputee dolphin,” said my husband. "Are we?" 

The look of resignation in his eyes told me he knew he wouldn't win this one.

“We made a deal,” I said. “What do you suggest we do?”

He called our eldest daughter, who is nearly 8, and was the ringleader of the campaign to see Winter. She scampered into his lap, pretending to be an eager puppy sitting up on hind legs. She made her eyes big and bright with anticipation.

“Fifty bucks,” said my husband. “I'll give you fifty bucks to not go see Winter. You guys can all go get a new toy.”

“No way,” said our daughter flatly.

“A hundred.”

“Nope.”

“Name your price,” he said.

“A gazillion dollars,” she said, and stuck her thumb in her mouth, glowering at him. End of conversation.

“OK, what about Busch Gardens,” said my husband. “We could go there. They have roller coasters and a zoo.”

She stopped sucking her thumb. “A zoo?”

“Sounds fun,” I said. “But let's check the price on that.”

It was five times the price of admission to the Clearwater aquarium—not quite a gazillion dollars, but close. He gave up.

“We're going to see Winter,” he said, shoulders slumped.

We read Google reviews to see what we should expect. 

“Long lines,” wrote one person. “And the tanks are filthy.”

“We traveled from New York to see Winter,” wrote one enthusiastic fan. “Our son has autism. Winter is an inspiration to us all!”

"Oh no," my husband groaned.

“Nothing to see,” wrote another. “Hardly any animals. You might get a glimpse of Winter if you're lucky.”

“It's perfect,” I said. “We'll be in and out in an hour.”

Upon our arrival at the aquarium, we took our place in line with tourists from all over North America and Europe to see this inspirational dolphin. While waiting to buy our tickets, we noticed a sign out front.

“Clearwater Marine Aquarium,” it read. “Rescue. Rehabilitate. Release.”

“Release?” my husband scoffed. “There's no way that money-churner is being released.”

It was a little too loud. The family of normal, sensitive people behind us--their daughter in a leg brace-- looked offended.

It was all kind of depressing--for the dolphins more than for us. I'm no expert, but I've seen dolphins in the wild. They don't do a lot of tricks, usually.

There were some happy moments at Clearwater. Watching our youngest cover his eyes when he saw an eel in a tank was pretty funny. Watching Winter strain to do her show-the-tail-stump-to-the-crowds trick was not.

By far the biggest bonus, we thought, was that our eldest daughter was now obsessed with dolphins. One of nature's quieter animals, one would think, being underwater and all.

Our daughter's fascination with all predators means we have been subjected to, on a daily basis, gutteral roars, hawk screeches, and her interpretation of a velociraptor squawk.

So an obsession with a relatively quiet, underwater creature obsession was a welcome relief. Until we heard the incredibly shrill call that dolphins actually make.

Bad enough on its own, but when she saw the trainer imitating the dolphin's shriek, we knew we were done for.

All the way home in the car: shrill dolphin screech-cries from the eldest interspersed with her four-year-old brother's cry of “Shaaaadaaap!!” When I glanced in back at them, our long-suffering middle child had her hands covering her ears.

My husband drove on, hunched, jaw tense, eyes bulging, bracing himself against the onslaught of noise. He looked like someone had scooped his soul out of his body.

"Good idea," he said, managing a smile.

Body Renos

It all started with a mole.

During my checkup last year, my doctor noticed a mole that looked a little smudged. She removed it. Just to be on the safe side, she referred me to a dermatologist to have him look at my other moles.

I have a lot of these “beauty spots”-- my preferred term. Under the unforgiving fluorescent light of the dermatologist's office, I had to strip completely from head to toe while he used a giant magnifying glass, lit with yet another fluorescent light, to scrutinize every inch of my skin.

“You know this is a woman's worst nightmare,” I said to him.

“Well, at least you shaved your legs,” he said with a pinched little smile. “So we're good.”

Bitch, I thought to myself.

He then found my birthmark, at my hairline. I was told to remove it when I was 13, but at that point in my life I had seen too many milk cartons with photos of missing children on them. The usual identifier? A birthmark. I thought it best to keep mine, lest I be kidnapped at some point and have nothing special about me for my mom and the police to write on a milk carton.

That was then. Now that I am a mother of three pushing 40, I can only dream about being kidnapped. It was time for the birthmark to go.

The thing exceeded the diameter of what was removable in a dermatologist's office. He said I'd have to see a plastic surgeon.

I'm going to pause here for a personal history moment.

I come from Vancouver Island, where many people are fans of the “natural” or “outdoorsy” look. Mussed hair, over-sized second-hand sweaters over scruffy jeans--it's a look that is carefully contrived to show you don't give a shit about the dull, conventional ways that employed people dress. Here in Toronto this look is called “disheveled hippie” or even “depressed halfway-house dweller.”

But I was brought up to fiercely protect the natural look. I was weaned on Free To Be You And Me and The Paper Bag Princess. I came of age reading Our Bodies Ourselves at Lilith Fair.

All the self-acceptance and feminism, however, couldn't crush my vanity.

The plastic surgeon's office was the forbidden fruit.

I'm sure some of his patients were the real deal – people who'd had unfortunate, disfiguring accidents or needed reconstructive surgery after a mastectomy.

But not the couple with identical facelifts sitting next to me. Their eyebrows were arched in an aloof, mildly curious way that remained unchanged whether they were reading magazines or talking to each other.

The doctor's assistant came out and greeted them. They were waiting to take their friend home.

“Is she rejuvinated?” asked the woman, her brow still immobile but her eyes wild with enthusiasm. This was place where shallow, self-absorbed, bored people could cater to their vain whims.

I felt right at home. You didn't even need the 20 large in your pocket. All you had to do was drain your savings and apply for a Capital One card.

It was okay to be selfish here, to take a risk and make a big change. And as such it was a terribly exciting place to be.

Upon seeing the surgeon, he said I should indeed have the disagreeable spot removed. Seven little stitches along the hairline. “It will give you a slight temporal lift,” he said. It was covered under OHIP.

He glanced at my intake form.

“Other than this, you are a healthy, 38-year-old woman?” There it was. A slight emphasis on that evil number, 38. An invitation to enhancement.

“Yes,” I said, beginning to perspire a little. “I am. Healthy.”

“Alright, if there's anything else I can do for you, let me know.”

The surgeon smiled. It was a warm, friendly, comforting smile. A new, perfect body seemed so entirely possible.

Three weeks later I found myself deep into a mental rabbit hole at JustBreastImplants.com. Women were talking saline and silicone like guys talk V-6 and V-8 engines.

“Just replaced my 350cc's with 750s,” wrote one woman. “Barely made it to the big girls' club, but I did!”

“Couldn't wait for my 1000's!” enthused another. “They're much heavier than my 650s. I need to wear support 24/7.”

“I can't wait for a reason to need a bra 24/7,” gushed another woman.

But for every enthusiastic new recipient, there were several posts from women whose surgery wasn't quite right. One boob bigger than the other, or hanging differently, or it leaked, or they got the wrong size implant, or there was something called a capsular contracture. (Google it.)

“Having issues shaving my armpits,” wrote someone called Leesa. “The implant is still so high and in the way.”

Tummy tuck recipients needed to take several weeks off from any lifting or driving, and had tubes in them after surgery to drain the fluid that accumulates after you're flayed.

How did they do it? How do women with careers and families have the time for elective surgery?

I was pondering this question one evening in the bathroom. I had just finished having a shower when my five-year-old barged in, unannounced and unapologetic.

“Um, may I have some privacy please?” I said. All the plastic surgery thoughts were having an effect on my self-esteem.

My daughter looked me over and started to giggle.

“What?” I said, feeling a little more self-conscious than usual.

“I love your boobies, Mama,” she said. “They're so silly. They look like googly-eyes.”

I still can't figure out why I took it as a compliment, but I did.

Party Hats

When our eldest daughter was five--this was a couple years back--she came into our bedroom early one morning and started rifling through our nightstand. We had long ago given up defending the “Master Retreat” we'd fantasized about while house-hunting several years back. In place of the relaxing, romantic bed-and-reading chamber we'd envisioned, what had developed was some sort of feral sleep den.

As our daughter marched in, unannounced of course, and opened one of our drawers, my husband and I suddenly turned to each other, eyes wide.

There was a box of condoms in there.

These were not just any boring Trojans with boring packaging that she might ignore. These were condoms in all the colors, textures and flavors of the rainbow, including glow-in-the-dark.

This particular box of “party hats,” as my husband calls them, came in packaging that had cool splotches of neon graffiti art and silly cartoon characters on it.

All of which was instantly appealing to a five-year-old.

“What are these?” our daughter asked.

I panicked, and said the first thing that came into my head. “Oh! Don't touch those! It's mommy's candy.”

Yes, that's what I called condoms. Mommy's candy.

“Candy!” she shouted indignantly. “Why do you get candy?”

“It's grown-up candy,” I said. “You won't like it. It tastes like coffee.”

Our daughter seemed to accept this, and the day went by without further mention of it.

The following week, I was vacuuming under the same daughter's bed, when the vacuum's hose suddenly became clogged. It made a peculiar high-pitched wheezing sound, like air being slowly released out of a balloon.

Something rubber was in there.

I untwisted a wire hanger and poked around in the hose. What came out were four unrolled condoms. I looked at my daughter, who was standing nearby.

“They're not candy,” she said, with a look of disgust.

“No honey, they're not.”

“What are they?”

“They're to keep mommy and daddy from having more babies.”

A big smile lit up her sweet little face. She had never really forgiven us for bringing not one, but two, younger siblings into her life. Condoms might not be candy, but they were, in Martha Stewart's words, a very good thing.