Cheap Wine on a Wednesday. It screams 'Bad Parent'.

It was one of those days today.  First of all, I worked.  But among other exhausting things, I was working in a kindergarten classroom.  We have discussed this before, I am not trained for this age group!  Oh, the tattling...  When someone interrupts to complain that Stu is on the wrong page, or that Jimmy called Samantha 'mean' I resist the urge to say "Who the f@ck cares, Grace?  Can I get back to the story?" or "At least his hand isn't in his nose, Sammy".  And the whining!  I wanted to yell "just cut out the circle Bobby, it's not f@cking rocket science!".  I am (clearly) not equipped with the primary skill set yet.

Anyways, after an exhausting day developing new skills, all of a sudden I was at the cashier in the grocery store with Ann.  I was in Adrian's oversized winter coat and old, wet runners with jogging pants (it was after 5pm. That's post 'real-pants' time).  I was buying bread, four Dr. Oetker pizzas (in my defense they were on sale.  Do you know how expensive they are?) and a big bag of dill pickle chips (not full fat though, they were baked. It's a weekday- I'm not a savage). Under my arm was a bottle of ten dollar Malbec, and Ann's hair was in her eyes.  There was so much yogurt in it, it was sticking out at weird angles.  And to her cheek.  She was overtired and grabbing at the gum rack.  Repeatedly.  I looked up, and caught raised eyebrows, derisive sniffs and the whiff of judgement in our general direction.  Including: Is that what that mother is feeding her child tonight? (yes. It's fewer steps than KD.  And it's made by a Doctor.)

Man...   I was such a better parent before I had a kid.  And- before I had a kid- I was also a better looking, more polished mother.  With more frequent haircuts and expensive jewelry. 


Speaking of wearing clothes after 6pm, 20sec of 30 Rock for your morning...

I need more friends.

Sooooo... I like to read.  I could read a book cover-to-cover if I didn't have a family and responsibilities.  And I probably did sometimes, back before I had Ann.  If I wasn't too busy being thinner, sportier, more well-slept and wealthier.  But I digress...
When Adrian goes away for work, I get lonely and tend read straight in the hours between Ann's bedtime and mine.  Or dawn, sometimes.  I substitute real adult interaction with fictional characters.  Which is TOTALLY NORMAL I DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT.  When he went to Europe for ten days this summer, I read 'The Help'.  Pretty much overnight.  The only problem with this type of compulsive reading (Well.  One could argue there are many problems.) is that you get too immersed in your novel's setting.  And the characters.  And the story.  For days during that trip our conversations would go like this:

MOMMY: Law... This heat is fixin to kill me.
ANN: Laaawwww.
MOMMY: Child... We need us some lem-moe-nade.
ANN: Nade.

Which isn't just strange, I'm pretty sure it's racist too.

This week I've been reading 'Game of Thrones' which is loooong.  And violent.  And I've been reading too much of it.
I was taking in an armload of groceries today when I dropped a box of frozen raspberries:

MOMMY: Annie, my hands are full, can you pick those up for me?
ANN: Too heavy.  Mummy do it.  Mummy carry.
MOMMY: Ann!  Where is your honour?  There is no more time for games, Winter is COMING! Grab the raspberries!  Winterfelllll!
ANN: eh-heh
(which is the passive agreement noise she makes when she's ignoring me.  She's already very good at ignoring me)

Clearly, the nerdiness is out of control.  So tonight, I threw in several hours of TV.  Just to be healthy.

Memory Lane

When we left Vancouver, our amazing and beloved daycare provider gave us a cd of photos of Ann that she had taken over the year.  My mac wouldn't open it, but we just got a pc that will.  Hence, a slew of photos of Ann looking cute.  Mostly.

Age One.  So cute.  I don't even remember her looking this cute.

Not as cute.  There is liquid oozing out of every facial orifice.  That's what daycare does.

I'm interrupting this photo montage to tell you about Ann's crooked bangs.  Who do you think cut them?  If you guessed me, you'd usually be right, but in this particular instance we have no idea who cut them.  We asked everyone, all to no avail.  I couldn't even really figure out when.  I think I had it narrowed down to a two day period, but c'mon, I was a working mom.  It was suggested that perhaps I was overworked and overtired and had cut them myself.  I scoffed- like, who blacks out on cutting her child's hair?  But then later I did sit Ann down and get the scissors and go through the motions, trying to jog a memory.  So I am very confident it wasn't me.  It had to be our daycare provider.  Now, daycare providers are like the waiter you don't want to spit in your food.  They are helping raise your child and have eight-hour access to her every day.  You do not want to piss them off.  Additionally, ours was the most wonderful person alive and we adored her.  I casually asked her if she'd noticed Ann's bangs, and then just as casually asked if she had done it.  She said- in the sweetest and loveliest way possible- "No.  They were crooked, so I assumed you did it."  Which i get, but still.  Also, this woman was perfect. She wouldn't have cut crooked.  This left the possibility that some toddler at daycare had done it, which is too horrifying to imagine.

I didn't really care that the bangs were terribly crooked (we're used to that), or that someone didn't ask our permission, but there were two things that bugged me:
1. Some undetermined person saw a need that my child had and filled it before I could get around to it.
2. Someone had scissors by my child's eyes, and I have no idea who that person was.

Anyways, it has given me an entirely new appreciation for bangs.  When they need to be cut, what they should look like, and how long it takes them to grow out.  Which is a long time.

Halloween.  The bangs almost grown out...

OMG you guys!  Tonight is going to be soooo fun.  Have I told you I love that that top? Totes adorb!
Let's get us some beverages!

Man...What was in those drinks?  Seriously...The room is spinning...

I'm sorry... Who are you again?

OMG!  I just had the best idea ever!!  Let's get POUTINE!

Her second birthday party.  Look at how happy she is.  And then we uprooted her and took her away.

You might notice that her name is spelled wrong.  We don't care.  We loved that woman so much she could have renamed her 'Jambalaya' and we would have just smiled politely and nodded.

Social Filter Short Circuits

This one is an old one that I wrote and posted on facebook.  I want to have everything in one place:
Everyone has a social filter.  It is that subconscious regulatory body that prevents you from relaying your favourite Family Guy jokes to your boss, telling your parents about that truly embarrassing yet hysterical thing that happened to your best friend when she was having sex with that guy last week, or discussing hemorrhoids when your landlady asks if your baby is everything you thought she was going to be.

Near the end of my maternity leave, I started to notice that my social filter was malfunctioning.  Off-colour jokes were coming out in mixed company.  Snide things that I'd sometimes think, but would never say were being said.  Perhaps it's because I wasn't spending enough time outside the house.  Perhaps I was too high strung (many of you who know me might say 'entirely likely').  Perhaps if you comment on your baby's bowel movements too many times with other adults, your social filter actually short circuits (social filters do not condone poo talk.  No matter how many times your baby exploded out of her diaper at inappropriate times).  Perhaps I just needed a hobby to bring me into more contact with other adults.

Case in point:
My first incident occured when we were buying a new car.  I had the baby on my knee and she was squirming and whining and generally being annoying.  We were going through the paperwork and because I was a foolish female and my auto-savvy man wasn't there, he was trying to convince me that even though I had a 5-yr factory warranty, I should still get the super-double-extended-warranty for my gas cap, rearview mirror and the decal on my keychain (which- to be fair- I bought.  And then later my auto-savvier man called in and opted out of).  My patience was really thin and I was snappier than I might have been (many of you are shocked, I know).  He said: "She's a rascal isn't she? (sign here) I bet sometimes you want to send her back where she came from! (initital here)."  To which I responded "Well, I sometimes think about it, but I don't think she'd fit."  And then, I palmed her head.  To show how big it was.
Awkward silence...  Honestly.  Was I thinking that this would make the process go more smoothly and painlessly?  Without your filter, it's just verbal diarrhea (my filter just spiked at the mention of diarrhea- clearly it's working now...).

Incident number two:
I was in a medical waiting room with a bunch of other new mothers-all of us with a sheet containing 'Baby's First Milestones'.  As often does, it became a competition of whose baby was more developmentally advanced.  The first woman- reading the milestone for 9mths that says 'can take socks off' (like really people- are we going to get competitive about that?  We're setting the bar pretty low aren't we?  It's not like they've knit those socks themselves)- said "My baby can take her socks off AND her pants".  To which another replied: "MY baby can take her socks and pants off, and her shirt too".  Normally I'd think something nasty and snicker quietly to myself, praying for the situation to end.  I'd also probably be smugly praising myself for not engaging in the parading of my baby's worth based on whether or not she can make a 'pincer grasp' , but my filter was one step behind me.  It didn't stop the 'make fun of these women' impulse in time.  I said "MY baby can get her socks and pants and shirt off, and THEN she makes out with boys.  She's VERY advanced."
Instant social pariah.  This time not just with the one car salesman, but with a roomful of cranky and underslept women.  Who clearly did not get my joke.

Anyways, my point is- when on maternity leave, get a hobby.

It Had to Happen Eventually.

So Ann and I bathe together.  It started when she was little; I tore my rotator cuff and couldn't support her weight in the tub from the floor.  And then it became a habit because I will use any excuse to have a bath.  I LOVE THEM.  It has always worked well as Ann neither pees nor poos in the bath (well, if she pees I haven't noticed and so I pretend she doesn't), and she and I bond over playing with her toys and singing bath songs.  Though there was one time when my little nephew came running in to say 'hi' to Ann and left traumatized- eyes wide and averted- when he discovered Auntie Nora was in there too.
The other night she was fishing around in the water as she whined "Mommy, this is bugging me!".  I expected it to be one of her playmobile nativity animals (you remember those)- they have pointy little legs that I'd figured she'd sat on- so I was very surprised when she produced a golf-ball sized rock.  It was tan-coloured and speckled with black and sort of imperfectly spherical, like the ones we'd brought home from the beach the day before.  And I thought "but how did it get into the bath with us?".  And then she dropped the rock into my open palm and I was surprised at how light it was.  And warm and soft and... OH MY EFFING GOD!  And then I was yelling and she was yelling and Adrian came barreling towards us from the kitchen, positive that Ann was drowning in the tub.  I yelled "The lid!  The lid!  Lift the toilet lid!", and he did- though he didn't understand why- and I lobbed the golf-ball poop across the room and into the bowl.  Realization dawned on poor Adrian's face- quickly followed by horror- as he dodged the backsplash from the toilet and then he was yelling too.  I don't think he could decide what he was the most grossed out about- that I had thrown poop towards him, or that Ann's poop had been in my hand, or that we were still stewing in Ann's poop soup.  And that's when Ann produced two more 'rocks' from the tub for me to put in the toilet.  After more yelling by everyone involved we were instructed by Adrian to scrub down in the shower.  While we recuperated from the trauma he scrubbed down the bathroom.  Adrian's revulsion towards germs is never to be underestimated, and I would not have been surprised had he asked me to sleep in Ann's bed.  He attacked that bathroom like Ann had polio.  The bath mat that our wet feet touched, the towels we used, the tub, and even the floor in case we had dripped on it; all were bleached. In his fervor he might have bleached the toilet as well, but that's what toilets are for Adrian.  To catch poop.

It wasn't until later that I realized- 'Hey.  You thought Ann might be drowning?  I was in the tub with her...how irresponsible do you think I am?'.  But I suppose that is a conversation to be had on a day when I haven't thrown poop around the house.

*Note:  In later discussion with Adrian, it turns out he did not, in fact, think that Ann was drowning.  Given my reaction, he thought there was a spider in the bath.  Which does make sense.

Seven Year Olds- Surprisingly Shifty.

A post I started on friday:

I worked today.  I know, I'm surprised too.  I had a day subbing at one of the local religious private schools.  It's like...another world there.  One I'm not familiar with.  This was my second day there, I'd had one day a few months ago, and it was the easiest day I'd ever taught.  Classes with 7 and 8 kids in them.  Kids that don't chew gum, or swear at you or throw chairs.  During my first block on that day I'd thought I'd heard music, a muffled noise.  I went on the prowl, searching out the perpetrating cell phone.  Of course it was the gospel choir practicing downstairs.  And that's when I realized I wasn't in Kansas anymore.


So I was back there today, it was pretty much the same.  The kids listened, they did their work, they let me boss them around.  And then they thanked me.  It's pretty much unheard of.  There was obviously the occasional snark or mean girl, but we are talking about a room full of teenagers, so that's pretty par for the course.  Is it the fear of God that makes them such delightful learners?  But then after lunch I had to cover 45min of grade one.  I have no experience with seven-year olds.  I have no idea how they operate.  They are like feral cats- unpredictable, full of bacteria, and given to biting.  I tried not to notice when they ignored my instructions, because how are you supposed to discipline them?  Can you just treat them like mini-teenagers?  I know what to do when someone swears or fights in class or refuses to give me their cell phone (though, if I recall, going into the sweater after the cell phone is not the right action to take), but a small child that won't stop tilting his chair?  Totally perplexed.  If I speak sternly will he cry or bite me?  They're shifty that way.  The teacher was fifteen minutes late coming back to the class and by then the students had been staring up at me blankly for several of those.  Many of them with fingers in their noses.  They were getting restless and I was trying to decide what mutiny looked like at the Grade One level.  I was close to peeing my pants.

Anyways, in other news there is a maternity leave for Grade One coming up at that school.   Adrian thinks I should apply as it would be perfect for me (read: involve regular paychecks), but I'm not sure I've come around on it yet.  I picture it as full days of tattle tale-ing and surprise boogers (Surprise!  There's a booger on the back of that chair you're holding!), but he's right, at this point gainful employment is better than sitting at home, cleaning up boogers and not getting paid for it.