Existential HUH?

A few months ago, I had coffee for the first time with a woman I had recently met.  We got personal pretty quickly, which is fine by me – I’m a bit of an open book on most subjects.  I shared some intimate details of my life story and also the details that I’ve shared publicly.  When I was done peeling back my onion for her, she asked me if I ever felt like I was put on this earth and kept around (so far) to accomplish something amazing.

All. The. Freakin’. Time.

In a nutshell, there have been numerous occurrences in my life – some medical, some notsomuch – that could have easily snuffed out my existence.  Yet, that didn’t happen.  Each time, I somehow made it through, and some of those triumphs were tippy-toeing near the “miraculous” zone.

Now, some of you are probably dying to hear all the gory details of these experiences, some of you may not give a shit, but either way – that’s ok.  This post isn’t about that, mostly because all of those stories would fill a book…hmmm…

The point of this post is to talk about the never-ending feeling I’ve had since I was very young, that I’ve been spared or given back my life numerous times because I have some great calling to fulfill.

So great, in fact, that I haven’t even figured it out yet.

Which IS the point of this post.

What if what I AM doing is the wrong “something amazing”?

What if I find out too late that what I’m already accomplishing and will accomplish were NOT the reasons why I’m here?

I know – this existentialist shit makes my head spin most of the time as well, but when somebody else hits your innermost thoughts and fears all in the same sentence for all the same reasons you have those thoughts and fears – it gets pretty deep.

This is not about ego – I don’t think that I’m here to change the world or any other grandiose ideas like that (with all due respect to those who ARE here to change it).  But what if changing the world was my “destiny” and I’m sitting here telling you that I’m not buying into my own destiny?

I’m sure you can see how this could, at times, be a little crippling.

Scrubbing toilets, typing out the words in my head and posting them online because there is nobody in front of me to speak them to, making grilled cheeses because I don’t feel like going to the grocery store for real dinner food – I’m not convinced these are signs of a higher calling, but who am I to judge myself?

Yes, it’s hard sometimes to avoid saying “I was saved for THIS?” when my child comes home from school with sopping leggings, because she didn’t pull them down far enough when she sat on the potty (yes, sat – like I don’t worry enough about her at school?).  Or when she comes home from school wearing only transparent tights as pants, because she didn’t feel like wearing the skirt she chose to wear that morning, and explained to me her belief that tights and leggings are the same thing.

I have to remind myself that no doubt Mother Theresa’s mom or Dr Martin Luther King Jr’s mother had stories like these to tell – mommy tales.  Yet, look at the destiny they fulfilled.

Now, Baby Girl may not turn out to be the next Oprah Winfrey or Nelson Mandela, or she may – that’s not really the point either.

The point is this – I have to find my OWN value in what I do.

I don’t have to be an iconic world hero, nor do my children.  I don’t have to measure my worth by other people’s standards – how much money I earn, how many people follow me, how many hits my posts get, how much charity work I do, how often I’m on the news.

I simply have to look upon my life as one that matters – no matter what I do.

What more amazing accomplishment can there be?

 

 

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Snow Shoot

I am not a winter person.  I’m not much of a summer person either.  I prefer the temperate weather of spring – yes, even with the rain – and fall (my favorite, but don’t tell the others).

Who would like a season that can do THIS?

I’m actually feeling a little uncomfortable even typing those words because I have always made it a bit of a personal rule to not discuss The Weather, in verbal discussions or on social media.  Oh sure – I’ve made comments here and there, when necessary, or as it pertains to a weather-related subject, but I have always felt that there is no point in discussing the weather. It is not going to change. I was born in Canada and have lived here all of my life, and not once in those 43 years has it not snowed or not been cold in the winter.  Not once has it not rained in the spring.  Not once have we had a humidity-free summer.  Never have I witnessed the leaves on the trees remaining green as fall slides into winter.  So, I’ve just never seen the point in conversing about something that I nor anyone else cannot change. Weather is what it is and nothing will stop it, so I prefer to simply put my head down and deal with it accordingly, similar to life’s other little irritations that I can’t control – needing gas in my car when I’ve used up what’s in the tank, having to wash my hair because I just don’t have the face for a Sinead-do, having to buy groceries via the brutal process of in the cart, out of the cart, in the bags, back in the cart, in the car, out of the car, in the house, out of the bags, and finally into their storage destinations.  Life is full of mundane tasks and circumstances and whining about them discussing them does not make them go away or improve in any way.

Yet, here I am, on the cusp of breaking my own rule.

I am hating this winter.

There – I’ve said it.  Trite, cliché, predictable, boring – I agree.

Yet I must speak on it, not because I have some uncontrollable urge to discuss the weather itself. In fact, I really don’t have much to comment on aside from my astonishment over how little I care about my appearance as the temperatures drop and my age climbs.  I have not a thing to say about current weather conditions.

Except that it’s creating a situation that is making me crazy: the daily laundering of the snow suit.

I am the one who generally hushes Huzbo when he gets wound up about dirt or food on the clothes.  I don’t enjoy hand-made messes, but I don’t want my anal-retentiveness to ever impede my kids’  fun or their necessary sensory development.

Yet, I still can’t seem to come to grips with why my child feels it necessary to slide around daily on the salt-covered ground on her belly.

Why?

I see the other kids coming out of the school each afternoon.  Their snow suits are not resemblant of a glazed donut!  I’ve driven by her school at lunch time and most of the other kids manage to stay standing while they partake in their fun and games.  Mine?  She arrives home daily with a lovely grit of dried dirt and salt covering her entire snow suit, front and back, with a side of sopping wet mittens that dry already starched if left on the vent.  So filthy is her outerwear that I’ve had to put it in the washer every day, leaving me to wonder if the garments will actually make it through the winter.

Why won’t she just sit there and eat the snow like she used to?

It’s gotten to the point where I’m actually GLAD when we have Deep Freeze Days.  Minus twenty wind chill means indoor play only at our school, which in turn equates to an afternoon free of snow suit laundry for me.

So Mother Nature, if you don’t mind, I’d prefer you simply take your leave, but if you’re going to be here – make it cold and make it count.

I’ve had enough.

 

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A Different Breed of Good

“I’m a bad mom.” 

“Wearing my “Mom-of-the-Year” sash and tiara.” 

“Rotten Mom Club President.”

Just a few of the sarcastic-but-not-really comments I’ve seen recently on social media and blog posts.

Every time I read these comments, my inner voice screams inside my head:

MOMS!  STOP THAT RIGHT NOW!
(If you’ve written any of these or something similar recently – don’t worry – this post isn’t about YOU specifically.)

I know the feelings behind those words, trust me, I really do.  The guilt about some parenting mistake that you’ve made.  I’ve been there.  Repeatedly.  I’m no mothering expert or pro.

But in addition to the numerous resolutions I quasi-made for 2014, I am really trying to give up on mom-guilt.

Do you know why?

It accomplishes nothing except making us feel like shit about ourselves.  How does that do anyone any good?

So what, if you don’t make all those stupid designer lunches for your kids – most kids just throw out their food half-eaten or bring it home uneaten anyway.

So what, if you did the happy-skippy dance when your kids walked out the door on the first day back to school after the holidays – you and I and about a million other moms did too.

There seems to be a growing trend of mothers expressing their mistakes publicly – which is awesome.  Let’s be honest with one another – we all screw up.  Every single one of us.  Hearing about other moms’ mistakes makes us feel normal and supported – we are a mom-munity.

But how does it help other moms to feel like part of the community if we talk about our screw-ups in such a negative way?

I’m not suggesting we brag about what we’ve done or pat ourselves on the back. “Woo-hoo!  I lost my shit on little Johnny last night because I have PMS, so I sent him to his room with no dinner – isn’t that cool?” isn’t going to make other moms feel that sympathetic or connected to you.  But sending out the subtle message that you are a bad mom if you make a mistake or if you enjoy time without your kids or if you get mad at your kids sometimes (a lot) for annoying the bejeezus out of you or any of the million other things that moms feel guilty about – that’s not cool either. Just tell it like it is – you made a mistake, you maybe feel guilty about it (or you feel guilty because you don’t feel guilty), but in the grand scheme of things, you’re still a great mom and this isn’t going to turn your kid into a disaster in the humanity department.

All of your guilt and shame and screw ups and oopsies – they are NORMAL.  Do you really want your kid having documented evidence of reasons to hate you or rebel against you or blame you for needing therapy when they get older?  Nuh uh.  Documenting your very normal HUMAN behavior under the label of “wrong” or “bad” is simply putting the idea into their heads, other mom’s heads and even YOUR head that you’re not good at what you’re doing.

And that’s bullshit.

Unless you are abusive or neglectful or doing other stuff that might require help or improvement – you are all good moms.

We are a different breed of good.  And that’s ok.  We don’t need to be perfect, or even perfect-in-training.

Personally?  I’d rather be the mom I am and demonstrate to my kids that I’m imperfect, flawed and I make mistakes, but I keep getting up every morning and trying again the next day.  I keep trying to learn from my mistakes and trying desperately not to repeat them.  I apologize to them when I think I should.  I’m human.

I don’t want my kids to grow up thinking they need to be perfect.  I’m not perfect.  Nobody is.  They don’t need to be, either.  And they definitely don’t need a perfect mom.

Imperfection is the new black, so stop beating yourselves up, moms.  Be kinder, gentler, easier on yourselves.

I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating:

Good enough is still good.

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Happy Anniversary to my Huzbo

Today is the 7th anniversary of me marrying Huzbo.

Pretty momentous, considering when my first marriage died at 5 years, I swore I’d never get married again.

For those of you that know me, or those that read this blog regularly, you know I don’t often talk sweet about poor ole Huzbo.

So today, I’m going to talk about the GOOD STUFF for a change.

1.  He is the hardest working man I’ve ever met.  He is the major breadwinner (where on EARTH did that stupid term come from? He doesn’t win bread, for crying out loud!) and he doesn’t quit when he gets home.  He does every kind of housework that I do and he also does ALL of the outside yard work, shovels, takes out the trash, does any house repairs required.  He is my Superman in the work department and even my closest girlfriends will attest to the fact that when we sometimes gather for our ladies’ bitch-about-our-husbands sessions, I certainly join in, but never when we get around to bitching about how husbands don’t help around the house.  He does.  Lots.  More than any man I know.  And I am very grateful for that.

2.  He scoops cat shit every day.  In addition to the household contributions described above, I have to point out separately that when I met Huzbo, I had 2 cats, and upon marrying him, he blindly agreed with me that a 3rd cat was just what our household needed.  From the time we began living together and trying to procreate, he has scooped the cat doo-doo.  In the past 7 years, the only times I have ever scooped are when he had his gallbladder removed and couldn’t bend over for a week, when he broke his ankle and couldn’t walk down the stairs to the basement, and when he went to Florida to help his mother there for 2 weeks.  That’s a LOT of cat crap that I’ve avoided, especially considering two thirds of those cats were mine to begin with.  Even now that one of those cats is a very senior citizen and has some senility with respect to where he should be doing his bio functions, Huzbo understands how much my cats mean to me and has never suggested they be removed from our family.  He has also committed to me that no matter what, when it is a cat’s time to leave this earth, Huzbo will be the one who goes with them and stays with them through it all, because I know I just could not.  He loves our cats too and I know it won’t be easy for him either, but he’s willing to do that so I don’t have to.

3.  He does amazing things with his hands.  Oh jeez – c’mon now!  Minds out of the gutter! (Although if you really want to know about that business, I’d have to say he does more magic with his mouth than his hands…)  He is a carpenter and a cabinet-maker and he listened to my desire to have real hardwood floors, laid on a diagonal with a dark strip border around every room in our 1st floor.  He told me I was crazy and it would be too hard and virtually impossible.  Then he did it.  He also did the same thing with the wall-to-wall built-in wall unit I asked him to build.  Then he did it a 3rd time when I told him the fancy plans I had for landscaping the front of our house, which he had never even done before.  He’s a talented man and not afraid to take on my challenging projects.

4.  He is not shy or quiet and loves to have fun.  I am not shy or quiet and sometimes need someone to pull the stick out of my ass to have fun.  I love going to parties with him, because I do not have to babysit him, ever.  He can work a room better than any politician.  He is the fun parent and our kids love a rumpus with daddy, because he puts everything into it.  He’s a big kid at heart, and sometimes it’s cute and endearing – like on Christmas eve just past, I arrived home with Baby Girl and he had a bowl of sugar waiting for her, with a bowl of multi-coloured TicTacs.  He told her to plant the magic seeds in the magic sugar, and she would get a big surprise in the morning after Santa worked his magic fertilizer on the seeds.  After she went to bed, he pulled out all of those TicTacs and instead stood up large candy canes of matching pink and green colours.  I’m pretty sure you can imagine Baby Girl’s eyes when she saw those magic candy canes that had “grown” from the seeds.

5.  He has a cute ass and beautiful hazel-green eyes.  ‘Nuff said.

6.  He will go to the store or fast-food restaurant at almost any time of day for ANY kind of products.  I’m not sure I want to get into too may details here, but we all have embarrassing items we sometimes urgently (or not-so-urgently) need at the pharmacy and Huzbo has never once said “No way am I going to march up to the counter and buy THAT business for you!”  And trust me when I say that sometimes I would have been embarrassed to have to buy some of those things.  He also is usually just as willing to run out at 9pm for a craved bag of chips, should my craving arise.

7.  He has seen me in some pretty awful states, some medically-induced and some self-induced, and he has held my hand (and sometimes the barf bag) and cleaned me up and he still wants to kiss me when it’s all said and done. After I’ve brushed my teeth, of course.

8.  He is the reason I am a mother.  When I met him, he already had a son.  Yes, he wanted more children, but considering the lengths we had to go to trying create a baby and then trying to adopt, I think he probably would have called it a day and accepted the fact that his one child was enough for him.  But he didn’t, because he knew I wanted, needed, one child for me also.  He wanted Baby Girl and he loves her to the moon and back, but when all is said and done, I think if I hadn’t wanted to be a mother so badly, he might not have pursued it to the extent that he did.

9.  Every once in a very long while, he completely shocks the shit out of me in the most touching of ways.  My parents mean the world to me, and Huzbo loves the bones of them also.  My dad has had a few health issues in the past few years, and recently has had some pain from one of them.  When the snow began to fall in December, my mother mentioned a few times how she worries about him shovelling their big driveway, and how he now needed to rest in shifts of shovelling.  They live close enough for us to see regularly, but not so close that we can pop over there every time it snows and do their driveway for them.  Two weeks before Christmas, Huzbo says to me “I think we should get your parents a snow blower for Christmas so your dad doesn’t have to hurt himself and strain his health every time it snows.  I’m worried about him.”   This, my friends, is when I fell in love all over again.   Not only was he willing to help pay for the snow blower with my brother and I, but he actually thought of the idea.  Forget flowers  – romance gets redefined when your husband does something so touching for parents that you love dearly.

10.  He loves chocolate.  I didn’t always think this was a great thing, to be honest.  Before I met him, I liked chocolate, but I didn’t LOVE chocolate.  I generally only indulged about every 3.5 weeks or so, if you catch my drift.  But living with a chocolate addict has its advantages.  Like, whenever those cravings hit – I know we have a cupboard FULL of choices that I can choose from to satisfy myself.  What’s not to like about that?

I could add a bunch more here – how he doesn’t mind eating at restaurants regularly, how he allows me extensive input into his wardrobe choices, how he will watch and actually enjoy chick-flicks with me, how he will sit on the couch and let Baby Girl play hair salon with his head for hours – but I think you get the picture.

Don’t get me wrong – he’s not perfect and he’s no angel, at times.  But neither am I.  Which leads me to another thing about him that I love:  he puts up with me, most of the time.

Happy Anniversary, Sweetheart.  It’s been a bumpy 7 year ride, but I’m still glad it’s you.   xoxo

The Spirit of Christmas Past

Christmas is over.

I can’t say I’m sad about it, either.

For a number of reasons, I really didn’t have much self-created Christmas spirit this year.

It’s been bugging me since early December, but I’m trying to let it go.

As part of that, I’m sharing the most touching, good moments so far over the Christmas break:

1.  I totally scored with every single gift I bought my stepson.  This is a record.  He is not picky, but he has everything, and each year becomes harder and harder to buy for him.  This year I really had to rack my poor, tired brain to think of creative, fun, useful, educational gift ideas, but he LOVED every single one of them, and I was one happy mama, especially when he showed genuine appreciation for my efforts.

2.  Baby Girl opened a present from my parents that turned out to be a doll that she already has at home.  My mom began to pack it up for return to the store and told Baby Girl she could come along and pick something else she liked in place of the doll, but my sweet Sassypants had other ideas.

“I already have lots of dollies. Why don’t we give it to a boy or girl who doesn’t have any money and doesn’t get nice presents for Christmas instead, Nanny?” she suggested.

BUSTING.  WITH.  PRIDE.

3.  I’ve spent some really good times with my kids.  Not just sitting in the same room as them, using my iPhone or laptop.  I actually got down and dirty and made gingerbread with them, and ate a bunch for them as they were decorated.  I played old board games (You’ve got Trouble? Wait don’t run! THIS kind of Trouble is LOTS of fun!) and new games that Santa brought and genuinely talked with and listened to my kids.  I took Baby Girl to Disney on Ice with good friends and really chatted with her on the train ride there.  I held her hand in the scary parts of Walking with Dinosaurs.  I laughed with them.  I feel closer to them.  Nothing beats that.

4.  I watched my daughter – who prior to Christmas Day couldn’t stop talking about all the THINGS she wanted to get from Santa – get out of bed and show far more excitement about handing Huzbo and I the handmade pinecone glittered-to-the-max tree ornament she made at school and boxed in a self-decorated box, than she showed over almost all of the gifts Santa gave her.

5.  On Christmas morning, I finally woke up Baby Girl at 7:30am because I couldn’t wait any longer.  I crawled into her bed and wrapped my body around her sweet little warm curl.  As she slowly wakened, she asked if it was Christmas yet.  I told her it was and asked if she wanted to go see if Santa had brought her any gifts.  Her reply?

“In a minute, mommy.  The only present I want right now is for you to huggle me.”

MELT.

Turns out my Christmas spirit wasn’t something I had to find to create excitement and enthusiasm for myself and my family.

Christmas spirit was there all along – waiting to wrap its loving arms around my heart at the most unexpected moments.

Diversity Got the Deep Freeze in the movie “Frozen”

We’ve just returned from doing what probably eleventy million North American kids did this weekend – watching the latest Disney movie “Frozen”.

I’m torn about sharing my thoughts, because on one hand, I want to be cool, just chill (see what I just did there?) and take a kid’s movie at face value.

And at face value – it WAS a pretty fun movie. Good music, funny jokes, entertaining characters and a uniquely engaging storyline.

But hidden underneath all that ice was something I found a little disturbing. So, being who I am, you know I’m going to share it with you. Because who are we kidding about that cool mom who knows how to chillax? Not me and we all know it.

Now, my biggest complaint about this movie is really not just about THIS movie, but about almost ALL kids’ movies. This one just happened to have the misfortune of being the ice on the cake (sorry, couldn’t resist).

There is a gaping lack of diversity in this and many other kids’ movies.

And I’m sick of it.

Yes, the movie is set in Medieval-era Nordic lands, where presumably diversity was not ever heard of, but don’t tell me that if Disney can cook up a story about a sister who has ice flowing from her hands to freeze a village in July and create blizzards, a moving,talking snowman that has body parts that separate and regroup at will and a reindeer that communicates with eyeball language, then don’t tell me they can’t cook up some black, Asian, East or West Indian residents in the village. Or royalty visiting the castle. Or a hero or heroine. Or even a cross-race romance (GASP!) I just don’t buy it. In one ballroom scene, there is a barely-there glimpse of a brown-ish couple, but it’s so fleeting that I’m actually wondering now if my eyes were playing tricks on me because I wanted to see something, anything other than white so badly.

The same is true for many kids’ TV shows. Take the royal darling Princess Sophia. How many black princes or princesses attend the Royal Academy with Sophia? Yep – you got it. None. Oh sure – Sophia has a black girl friend, who is a peasant in the village from Sophia’s pre-royalty life, but she rarely shows up at the castle. Why is that? Are the writers and creators so confident that a non-white person could never actually become royalty via an exclusive private academy? I also watched a Barbie TV special last week with Baby Girl that disgusted me for the same reason – Barbie and all of her white friends were attending a fancy private school that offered equestrian training and competition. Well, it must have been set either in South African apartheid, or the Southern States prior to the civil rights movement, because there were nothing but WHITE girls at that school.

The same for Frozen. It would appear that diversity was frozen out of this film. Not even a non-white servant in the castle, which perhaps I should be thankful for, that at least THAT stereotype was left out.

Now what troubles me most about the movie white-out is this: my daughter is black and taking her to see these movies is sending her the subliminal, subconscious message that non-white people do not belong in princess adventure movies. Unless of course they have their own township-like side of town to live their life of hardship in menial jobs, are turned into a frog to help a sinister black voodoo man and end up owning a restaurant with a fellow “coloured” man, not living like royalty in a castle. Baby Girl is learning from these movies and shows that maybe non-whites just aren’t good enough to be at a grand party at the castle, or even skating in the castle courtyard with the other villagers.

Children’s TV and movies is not the world of equality and the desired colour-blindness that so many politically correct people are calling for today, yet we as parents continue to take our kids to these movies and allow them to believe that it’s acceptable to freeze out diversity.

Don’t get me wrong – Baby Girl did not notice the missing representation one bit. In fact, during the Barbie TV special, I asked her numerous times if she saw anything missing from Barbie’s school and circle of friends, and she didn’t. Even when I pointed out to her that there were absolutely no black girls – or any other race than white – attending the school or even in the show – her response made me want to cry.

“That’s ok mommy. It doesn’t bother me.”

Well, it bloody well should. It bothers the hell out of me, and it bothers me MORE that it DOESN’T bother her. To me, that’s simply an indication that her experience of movies and television has been so completely white-washed that she just assumes this is NORMAL. Which sadly, it is in the world of entertainment, if not the real world that some of us live in.

I’m really disappointed that a powerhouse like Disney, knowing they could do SO MUCH to instill tolerance and equality in our children’s minds, continues to white-out all of their characters, or segregate them to their own movies like The Princess Frog, Mulan or Pocahontas.

If so many of us are trying to de-segregate, inter-relate and strive for a loving society of diversity, why shouldn’t our children’s entertainment be helping us send the same message to our kids so their generation doesn’t have to work so hard to fight racism?

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The Tale of Mavis the Mother Raccoon

Have I ever told you about Mavis?  No?   Well, grab a coffee and have a read:

Two years ago, in June, I finally had an opportunity to see one of my favorite musicians in concert – Sade.  John Legend was opening for her.  Two very sexy singers, so Huzbo and I decided to book a hotel room in the city and spend the night there after the concert.

It was one of the most memorable dates Huzbo and I have been on ever, even including our courtship.  We woke up at an hour that was not obscene and figured we would check in with my parents, who were caring for our kids at our house.

Stepson picked up the phone on the first ring, and the excitement in his voice was carnival-quality:

“WE HAVE A RACCOON WITH BABIES ON OUR BALCONY!!!”  he practically sprang through the phone.

What.  The.  Hell.

The aftermath glow from our dream date the night before quickly slithered out the door as my parents confirmed that yes, a neighbour had rang our bell that morning and advised my parents that she had watched a raccoon crawl up our drainpipe and scuttle into the small, half-wall-enclosed balcony at the front of our house, accessible from our guest bedroom.  My parents also confirmed that from what they could see through the window, the raccoon did indeed appear to have some babies sleeping with her.

Huzbo, being in the home reno business, was beside himself.  He had been contracted many times to repair damage done by raccoons entering houses for winter hideaways, some residing there long enough to make serious damage repairs necessary.

We rushed home and peered out the window overlooking the balcony.  There, snuggled tight to the wall beneath us, were the mother raccoon and her four babies.  Very, very new babies; they had no fur and no open eyes.  Babies so new that they only nursed and slept and did not move.

Shhh. Mavis liked to have a puff or two after a hard night’s foraging. (We don’t. That was left from a guest who did.)

We had no idea what to do.

For the next few days, the raccoon family become our main focus.  The kids wanted to look at them all the time. I was researching ways to relocate them in a humane way, while simultaneously falling in love with how cute they all were, even when the mama growled and hissed at me the few times I cracked open the door to quickly stick my phone out and snap pictures of her.  Suffice to say our cats became borderline obsessive about sitting on the inside of the window, keeping a territorial watch on this invasive critter.

Why yes, that is a chunk of my ear missing. Don’t. Mess. With. Me.

Our local wildlife control agencies were of no use.  They wouldn’t move a mom with babies, and even if she was childless, they would only move the animal to the nearest natural habitat, which happened to be only 500 meters down the street, as we live near a ravine with a creek and wooded area.  The raccoon would surely find her way back without asking for directions.

I contacted several wildlife authorities, asked for suggestions on Facebook (with far too many of them promoting harm to the creatures) and even considered a friend’s offer to borrow a cage and cart them two hours away for relocation myself.

But we couldn’t do it.  Four innocent babies and their mama, who thought she was doing the right thing by finding such a great, safe shelter to birth her babies and care for them, needed a place to stay.

So they stayed, at least for a while.  Raccoons are nocturnal, especially nursing mothers, so we would watch them snooze the day away, and then watch as mama waited for darkness to fall and climb down the drainpipe to forage for food to eat and keep her milk flowing for the hungry babies.  News spread of our visitors and neighbours began to stop by to be led upstairs to have a peek out the window at our new residents.

The kids were thrilled, of course, and kept asking to name the mother.  My brother suggested Mavis, and somehow it stuck.  Mavis began to know me, as I was home the most and therefore my face was the one appearing most often at her window into human life. She would sometimes sit on the outside ledge of the window while I observed her.  Once she even raised her paw and pressed it to the glass when I did the same with my hand.  We were becoming friends, and my husband began to panic that the next phase of our relationship would involve me feeding her.

I will get you to feed me and my babies with all my furry cuteness…

Does that human not know it’s rude to watch someone sleep?

 

Huzbo had no interest in friendship with Mavis.  He had already seen the pieces of weather stripping she had torn from the outside of the balcony door.  He warned me daily to not feed her – oh how well he knows me!

He began to really push for relocation and as much as I was growing fond of Mavis and her little crew, I knew they couldn’t stay.  One day, I came across a site in the US that advertised a sure-fire way to get rid of raccoons.  Especially female raccoons.  With babies.

They were selling male raccoon pee.

Yes, you read that correctly.

Turns out that male raccoons are actually predators of baby raccoons, so the mamas will run a mile to avoid those males, once she bears the fruit of their loins.  Also turns out that mama raccoons rarely give birth without having a local back-up den, in the event that their birthing hideaway is invaded.  Invaded by humans with $80/ounce of male raccoon wiz, that is.

The package arrived a couple days later, a small plastic bottle about the size of a travel shampoo container.   But the stench of it was much bigger.  Huzbo opened it in the garage with gloves on, and I could still smell it in our house.  Personally, I don’t think the females are afraid of the males themselves – I think they just can’t bear the stink of them!

That night, Huzbo soaked a tennis ball with the junk and had to walk it through the house in a bucket to get it to the balcony.  He didn’t want to take the risk of attempting to throw the ball up to the second-storey balcony and miss its mark, leaving the ball to ricochet and spray the stench everywhere.

We knew Mavis had left for grocery shopping, so Huzbo quickly tossed the pee-soaked ball out the balcony door and closed the door. We waited.  And waited.  She didn’t come back for hours and we finally went to bed. In the morning we rushed to the window to see if they had packed their bags and vacated.

There were Mavis and her little family curled up snoring with the tennis ball sitting six inches away from them.

My apologies for the high-quality Blackberry photos through a window.

Huzbo tried again that night, with two tennis balls, more heavily saturated with that disgusting odour than the night before.

Mavis and family were still there when we awoke.

However, Mavis was wide awake.  This was new — normally she was fast asleep in the morning after a busy night of scavenging for food.  She also seemed agitated and was pacing a little, no doubt from the hairs inside her nose slowly burning off from the pungency of the tennis balls.

Did one of you kids toot?

Clearly she was reconsidering this particular labour and delivery ward, so to further convince her of its inappropriateness,  I grabbed a radio and plugged it in right beside the door to the balcony, turned on a rap/hip-hop station and cranked the volume to max.  Raccoons loathe rap and hip-hop, you see.  Actually, they loathe any type of loud noise.

Within an hour, Mavis had grabbed one of her babies in her mouth and had scurried down the drain and through our backyard, under the fence.  No doubt heading to the green space nearby and the quiet, odourless sanctuary of her back-up den.

Except she didn’t return for her other three helpless orphans.  All day.

By late afternoon, I was frantic.  I began researching how to feed and raise baby raccoons, while Huzbo began to research how to institutionalize his wife.  I was committed to attending a party that night, but went with a heavy heart and my phone in hand, waiting for Huzbo to text me the minute Mavis returned to collect her treasures.

Thankfully, she finally did.

We’ve never seen her since, and I think Huzbo deliberately left those tennis balls that are still sitting out there to this day as a warning to her or any other raccoons looking for a warm, safe shelter.

Wait ’til she tells you the story of the robin that built a nest over her front door…

If you liked this post, please swing over to the right side of your screen and follow my blog, so you get my new posts directly in your email inbox. While you’re there, why not also click the “Like” button for my Facebook fan page and hit the “Follow @PapayaJambalaya” button to follow me on Twitter? Yeah, that’s right – go ahead – stalk me. It’s all good. If you’re already stalking me or are going to -Thank you!

The Disappearance of Halloween

Today’s post was a toss-up between a Halloween mini-rant, or another installment of “She Said, He Said” but I figured my marriage drama could wait a day or two, perhaps to gain a little perspective.  Stay tuned for that one…

Last night on Twitter, I read about how a school had cancelled Halloween.   Then another woman tweeted today the same about her child’s school, in another province.

What the Ghoulish Goblin Guts???

I am still astounded by this.  Cancel Halloween?  Are these some weird military schools churning out kids with zero sense of fun?

The explanation, apparently, is that:

a)  Some families don’t participate in Halloween, whether because of cultural or religious reasons

b)  Some kids come from families that can’t afford Halloween

Well, I guess that is your choice and I’m not here to convince you to join in on Halloween.  I just want it left alone for those who DO participate!

Here’s my 5 cents on that (you now officially get 3 extra cents because pennies no longer exist):

If you don’t like Halloween or don’t want to participate – then don’t!

That seems pretty straightforward to me.  So why don’t our schools get that?

We are not campers in our family, so we don’t take our kids camping.  See how I did that?   

I don’t take my kids to campgrounds and then complain to all the other campers that WE don’t camp, so neither should they.  The campgrounds don’t close up because some people don’t like camping.

We don’t stand outside camping equipment stores and petition everyone going inside to cancel camping, just because WE don’t like camping.  The stores don’t stop selling gear because we don’t buy it.

Get my drift?

If you don’t want your kids to participate – find something else for them to do while their class enjoys Halloween fun.  Why do our schools feel they need to make everybody happy all of the time?  Why does our government support this mentality?  There are A LOT of people that don’t like smoking.  For very good reasons.  Has the government banned smoking everywhere in this country??

As for costumes, I will admit that my kids prefer store-bought costumes.  Mainly because they don’t know any different.  I confess I am pretty uncreative and probably a bit lazy when it comes to thinking of original, homemade costumes.  It’s always seemed easier to buy one off the rack, but I’m not crafty, as you already know.

However, if I did not have the means to buy my kids costumes, I would suddenly become much more creative in digging through my closets, basement, parents’ closets and recycling bins to find bits and bobs that I could make inexpensive Halloween costumes out of.  I have a friend and she’s on a tight budget with four kids.  She does not buy costumes, but her kids pranced off to school today dressed in AMAZING homemade Halloween costumes that THEY thought of and made almost independently.

Necessity is the mother of invention, right?

When I was a kid, I don’t remember getting a store-bought costume (I may have gotten one, but I only remember the ones I made. Hmm…) and not because my parents couldn’t afford one.  It just wasn’t the norm, but not once did my parents or any other parents that I know of march down to our school and ask them to cancel Halloween because we couldn’t afford to BUY a costume!!!

I support inclusion, I really do.   But I think we need to pause and consider what exactly inclusion means.  Inclusion is not a reversible word that translates to really mean inclusion for some, while excluding others.  And cancelling the fun of dressing up for Halloween with their classmates and eating a few treats for those who enjoy it sounds pretty exclusionary to me.

Have a safe and Happy Halloween everybody!

If you liked this post, please swing over to the right side of your screen and follow my blog, so you get my new posts directly in your email inbox. While you’re there, why not also click the “Like” button for my Facebook fan page and hit the “Follow @PapayaJambalaya” button to follow me on Twitter? Yeah, that’s right – go ahead – stalk me. It’s all good. If you’re already stalking me or are going to -Thank you!

The Journey

For my regular readers, just a warning that this post is a bit…darker and heavier than my usual posts.  Writing is therapy and I’ve needed to get this out for a long time.

For everyone else – there is cussing contained within.  Consider yourself warned.

The Journey

I don’t expect you to understand why I am who I am or why I am the kind of mother that I am.

I don’t expect you to know what it is like to spend ten years trying to become a mother, spanned over 2 different husbands and a marriage that fell apart partially because I couldn’t conceive, or to have not 1 but 2 boyfriends tell you that they weren’t sure they could marry you because you might not be able to make babies.

I don’t expect you to know the paralyzing fear of attempting to conceive in my own body, knowing that everything I did or didn’t do could potentially harm a baby growing inside of me because of my own medical conditions.  I don’t expect you to sympathize that I often wonder if that fear is the reason why I didn’t conceive.

I don’t expect you to comprehend the bewildered astonishment of a positive home pregnancy test after a “one last time” interlude with my estranged ex-husband.  I don’t expect you to feel the disbelief of that pink plus sign, after 1 failed IVF and 2 failed IUI treatments.  I don’t expect you to get that I had to race to my brother’s house with the pee stick in my hand to ask him if HE thought it said “Positive” and then even when he agreed that he too saw the pink plus,  I still had to go to the local E/R to get a blood test done,  because my own pee was not trustworthy enough.

I don’t expect you to understand the devastation one week later, when I saw those spots of blood, knowing what they meant but still having to return to that E/R to wait 6 hours to be told that the sac was no longer attached to my uncooperative uterus.  I don’t expect you to grasp the horror of feeling and then seeing that unattached sac exit my body.

I don’t expect you to know what it is like to fall in love with someone who tells you AFTER you’ve fallen that he’s had a vasectomy when the only thing you’ve ever wanted your whole life was to be a mother.  Or to wonder if your decision to stay with him and pursue a reversal is a decision that will forever prevent you from becoming a mother.  Or to know that the semi-failure of the reversal coupled with your own failed fertility equated to three more failed IVF’s.  I don’t expect you to understand what it’s like to deal with all of these fertility failures, while having the evidence of that man’s fertile-on-the-first-try first marriage living in your home half of the time.  I don’t expect you to sympathize with trying to hide the shame and fear and embarrassment and pain of your own union’s infertility from that evidence so his mother won’t be even more smug than she already is in her thinking that SHE is the only one who will EVER provide a genetic link to your husband, while telling that link that he is his father’s only “real” child when she found out about our plans to adopt.

I don’t expect you to know about the urge to scream with rage from the physical pain of the daily multiple injections of drugs and hoping upon hope that the reports you read are wrong about the fact that they can cause cancer.  I don’t expect you to get the disgust of waking up soaked in your own hot-flash sweat from those high-dose hormones or the daily blood tests from veins that never gave up blood easily before fertility treatments, never mind how they began to look like veins of a heroin addict after 3 months of almost-daily torture to them.  I don’t expect you to know the initial shame and embarrassment that soon turns to numb indifference after a different person probes my most private area on a daily basis. I don’t expect you to get how the cocktail of hormones made me cry at the slightest provocation, yet also created volcanic anger explosions for the most minimal of offenses.

I don’t expect you to know the disappointment of finding out that your eggs and your husband’s sperm, and then a strangers sperm, failed to create an embryo, and then failed to create an embryo that bothered to stay alive long enough to put back inside your uterus, yet have the doctor put 4 dead embryos inside of you anyway in case your uterus could magically awaken the dead and create a baby out of those useless microscopic dead cells.

I don’t expect you to comprehend the agony of the Two Week Wait between the transfer of embryos into my uterus and the morning 2 weeks later when the pregnancy blood test is done, all the while begging those microscopic assholes to please, please, please stick to my uterus and dig themselves a comfy little nest for the next nine months.

I don’t expect you to know what it feels like to wait that morning at home alone after the blood test is drawn, sitting with the phone in your hands, dying for it to ring, but terrified it will ring and wondering why the FUCK it hasn’t rang yet and trying to find something to occupy your mind while you wait out those hours when nothing on this earth could possibly do that.

I don’t expect you to understand what it’s like to get that phone call alone, yet at the same time be so glad that nobody is there to witness your ugly cry breakdown on your hands and knees on the floor after you throw the phone against the wall when you hang up.

I don’t expect you to feel the crushing, tidal-wave blow of hearing “Your blood test was negative” from the IVF nurse on the phone, not once, not twice, but SIX times over a 10 year eternity.

I don’t expect you to applaud the teeth marks in my tongue from not telling that same IVF nurse to fuck off with her sympathetic voice when she delivered that news each time.

I don’t expect you to feel bad for me about the wasted loss of all that money spent for NOTHING.

I don’t expect you to understand what it is like to grow up your whole life believing that one of the world’s expectations of you as a woman is to have a baby, to become a mother, and then to know that you are a failure as a woman when you fail to create and produce that baby for motherhood.

I don’t expect you to feel the fury towards Mother Nature for making you suffer through a period every single month for NOTHING if you can’t even have a baby, long after you’ve accepted that you’re not getting pregnant ever, and wishing your entire female reproductive system would just piss off.

I don’t expect you to appreciate actually looking forward to menopause just to finally feel like you really are like other women.

I don’t expect you to empathize with the bitter resentment felt for the man who expected me to plan HIS child’s birthday party one week after the news of our final failed IVF in Europe, because he HAD a kid and could never truly comprehend my pain.   I don’t expect you to get that I really wanted to fall to the floor kicking and screaming as we walked past the Baby section that day in Toys R Us while looking for a gift for HIS child.

I don’t expect you to comprehend that even now, even after my acceptance of our infertility and the absolute knowledge that my daughter was meant to be with me, even with my acceptance that I will NEVER feel a baby I helped create grow and move inside of me, never see that baby leave my womb and watch it take its first gulp of air, first scream, first look at the world – even NOW, I feel a tiny little stab in my soul when I see a pregnant woman or a baby or read about a pregnancy or see a newborn baby picture.  I don’t expect you to get that while I am at peace with my destiny, there are some wounds and scars that will never completely heal.

I don’t expect you to understand that FINALLY becoming a mother completed me, despite those wounds and scars.  My daughter gave me peace.  And yes, she is MY daughter.  She has a father, but she is mine, and I don’t expect you to understand that, either.  She provided the balm for a 10 year quest that nearly destroyed me more than once because I had no comprehension during the journey that she was my destination.

I don’t expect you to comprehend that I wake, live, eat, breathe, exist for my daughter.  My love for my daughter consumes me.  She is the meaning of my life and the purpose of my existence.  I don’t expect you to understand that any harm to her, or Dear Sweet God above NO!, the loss of her, would destroy me.   That is not drama, it is fact.  I don’t expect you to comprehend why my thoughts would even go there because I don’t expect you to understand that I am too old, too emotionally spent and too financially drained to endure the journey of another adoption.  I don’t expect you to empathize with why I worry about harm coming to her, after everything I’ve been through to finally be her mother.  Nor do I expect you to get my fear of my own death before she becomes an adult, as she would also be destroyed.  No, that is not ego.  I simply understand that there are only so many hurts a young, beautiful heart can possibly survive, and hers is at capacity.

I  don’t expect you to understand that every person, place, thing, new environment, new experience is a potential threat to my daughter, in my mind.  Although it may not seem that way sometimes, I try my very hardest to not allow the world’s threats to stand in the way of allowing her to experience the world as a beautiful, educational, magical place without fear.   I don’t expect you to understand that if my choice is between keeping her safe or hurting someone else’s feelings, she will ALWAYS stay safe, and that I don’t really care if you don’t see the same risks to her safety that I see.

I don’t expect you to comprehend the unbelievable pressure I put on myself to be a perfect mom, all the while knowing that such a thing doesn’t even exist, because  I waited, I begged, I pleaded, I cried, I prayed, I suffered and I was finally rewarded with her, so I must demonstrate my gratitude and deservedness by being the best mother I can be at all times, even though I’m not and I can’t.

I don’t expect you to know or understand any of these things.  This is my journey…

My Crafty Halloween Decor

It’s Halloween season!

I love to decorate our house for the various holidays and occasions – Easter, Christmas, Valentine’s Day and Halloween.  Well, maybe the truth is – I love buying the stuff and watching Huzbo put it up!

I think this means he loves my way of decorating too…

Over the years, we’ve collected quite an array of decorations for each occasion.  Some of them fancy and expensive-looking, some of them not-so-fancy and pretty obviously not expensive.

Fall seems to be a time of year when even the craft-challenged folks like myself suddenly feel inspired to do some sort of crafty project.  I’m not sure why that is, but I’ve seen some incredible hand-made crafts on blogs for crafty people, and I am constantly amazed by the talent, creativity and patience of those who can fabricate these decorative items.

I used to feel guilty that I wasn’t crafty like that.  I don’t search sites looking for ideas of fun crafts to do with my kids.  I don’t wander the aisles at Michael’s, filling my buggy with components of some great creation I or my children can create together.

I am a Dollarama Mama.   And no, this is not a sponsored post for Dollarama, although if they want to send me a gift card in appreciation for the plug, I’d be happy to receive it!

I love Dollarama.  Do you know why?  Because they save me brain cells, time, energy and money.  They create these awesome little craft kits that provide the needed parts of a cute craft, and my kids just open the container and DO A CRAFT!  Plus, you can’t beat the price!  For $2 tops, I get an all-in-one-package hour’s worth of occupied time for my kidlets, parental participation optional, that I didn’t have to think of or shop for.

The results are pretty sweet too:

I went 6 years in my first marriage without a carved pumpkin or Halloween decoration, and the day after I met Huzbo, he came to my home to carve pumpkins with me, his newly-sharpened knives wrapped in a towel.  Smarter women might have been worried by that, but I thought it was romantic that he wanted to do something with me that I had missed out on for so long.  So romantic, in fact, that “Wanna carve some pumpkins???” has taken on a whole new meaning in our house since then, but that’s an entirely different post!

Happy Halloween everyone!  Enjoy your fun, no matter how you decorate or do your crafts!

If you liked this post, please swing over to the right side of your screen and follow my blog, so you get my new posts directly in your email inbox. While you’re there, why not also click the “Like” button for my Facebook fan page and hit the “Follow @PapayaJambalaya” button to follow me on Twitter? Yeah, that’s right – go ahead – stalk me. It’s all good. If you’re already stalking me or are going to -Thank you!