Posted by Kimberly on May 31st, 2008 — Posted in Just Like Riding A Bicycle, Facebook Guy, The Man I Didn't Marry
I have to confess, even though I’ve made it clear all along that my relationship with The Man I Didn’t Marry is not some sort of romantic comedy in which, after a decade and a whole lot of life experience, our favourite couple finally manages to get over themselves and figure things out, I did sort of think that this year’s unniversary would be a bit different than usual. For the first time since the year we didn’t get married after all (1997, for those of you playing our at home game), The Man and I are back in each other’s lives. Heck, we’ve been dating. So, I guess I figured maybe we’d hang out or something…You know, mark the occasion of our non-occasion with a couple of drinks and maybe some laughs.
Is that weird?
OK, I admit it. I was totally thinking that we’d go out to dinner, have a nice evening, and maybe toast the end of an era of estrangement and a friendship reborn. Until I logged on to my Facebook and saw this in my newsfeed, that is:
The Man You Didn’t Marry is in a relationship with Someone Who Is Not You.
Um..What?
True, we were just dating. And I’m really not looking to be in a relationship with anyone, let alone The Man I Didn’t Marry Who Just Got Out Of A Rebound Marriage But Whose Divorce Isn’t Even Final Yet. But….
What???
It’s not the fact that he’s “in a relationship” that bothers me. It’s not even that he was apparently dating her and who knows who else at the same time he was dating me (I honestly would not have cared; I mean, it’s not like I haven’t seen Facebook Guy a time or two.) It’s not even the fact that my big unniversary plan is now kaput and I’m back to spending the day alone. What bothers me is that I found out about it through a FACEBOOK NEWSFEED.
Ouch.
Yes, ok, fine. I did, once upon a time, practically leave him at the altar. And yes, I pretty much blindsided him in doing so. And no, I didn’t have a better articulated reason than, “I think I’ve made a mistake and even though I love you, I don’t want to marry you.” (In my defense, I DID give back the ring. And I still think I was right.) But that’s not the point here–All that was eleven years, four kids, two careers, and a failed marriage ago. The point here is that in spite of that ancient history, I think that at the very least I deserved to hear the big news from an email, not a Facebook Update.
None of which changes the fact that apparently The Man I Didn’t Marry and I have come full circle after all. But you know what? I think I’m ok with that part of things. I think that’s the way it’s supposed to be.
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Posted by Kimberly on May 29th, 2008 — Posted in Zen Baby, Kipple
I’ve never participated in the Shape of A Mother project. I’ve read the stories and seen the pictures and applauded the idea of taking pride in our postpartum bodies as they are and not as the media would like us to believe they should be, but I’ve never felt compelled to submit my own struggle to embrace my maternal self.
Mostly, I guess I figured that I didn’t really have any issues. Not that I don’t have the same stretch marks, widened hips and residual 5 lbs that nearly every mother carries with her–I ballooned from 117 to 168 lbs with Diva Girl so trust me, I’ve got stretchmarks! It’s just that as a former “Fat Girl” gone tiny, I’d worked through a lot of my body stuff before I ever got knocked up. Or, at least I thought I had; the fact that nearly a decade later I still have total recall of those two numbers might possibly tell a different tale–one that is written by the stretchmarks scrawled across my belly.
Like many women, I’ve dealt with this scarred swathe of skin through the simple expedient of hysterical blindness. It’s not that I’m in denial about those sagging abdominal muscles and the roadmap of white lines that criss cross the; I know they’re there all right. But much like my red hair, freckles, and the mole behind my right knee, they are simply a part of the natural landscape of my body–something so familiar that I barely notice it anymore.
Regan, however, is four and therefore honourbound to notice everything–including the lines marring my belly that serve as a permanent reminder of the time I carried her (and her sister) under my heart as well as in it.
“What’s that?” She asks, pointing to the ruined skin.
How do you explain stretchmarks to preschooler? Especially one who bears her own scars on her belly?
“That’s where you pushed out all the skin when you were inside my fat tummy!” I answer with a smile and a tickle.
She giggles at this image, charmed as all children her age are that someone as big as themselves once lived in there. Then, in a gesture that takes my breath away with its gorgeous simplicity, she leans over and kisses those marks–and in doing so, heals wounds I didn’t even know I had.
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Posted by Kimberly on May 28th, 2008 — Posted in The Ladies, The Agony and The Entropy, Kipple
I didn’t really mean it the other day when I said I had too many shoes. Really, how can anyone have too many shoes? It’s just not possible! Unless, maybe, the shoes in question no longer fit the feet for which they are intended. Then there might possibly be an issue–especially if the owner of said shoes is unwilling to part with them, despite their apparent loss of functionality.
It’s been well documented over the years that I have a bit of a thing for shoes. What has been less apparent–although will probably come as no surprise–is that this fetish of mine extends beyond myself to include the feet of my children as well as my own. In fact, The Ladies might possibly have cuter shoes than I do. The problem is, unlike me, they keep outgrowing theirs. And therein lies the problem.
The very idea of simply throwing them away strikes me with the same visceral reaction that some other mothers have when it is suggested that they really need not save the baby teeth (ew!); what your baby’s molars and incisors are to you, my baby’s outgrown sandals and sneakers are to me. Except that baby teeth are so much easier to simply tuck in the back of your jewelry box.
So, what to do with the wee footwear that I can no longer force onto tiny feet, but also cannot force myself to part with? Well, used to be that I simply left it all in a heap on the bottom of the hall closet, but my recent organizational spree has eliminated that as an option. And somehow, storing non-functional items in the Magical Pockets of Delight seems….wrong.
Putting them on display so that I can continue to enjoy their form long after their functionality has fallen by the wayside, however? Seemed like the perfect idea. And so, the red dinosaur rainboots Diva Girl refused to take off in the store, the strappy rainbow sandals I loved so much I’ve bought a similar pair every year since, the sparkly pink jelly shoes that have long since faded to orange, the ladybug shoes that marry two of my favourite things, and the matching pairs of Irish dance slippers (No, they don’t dance; I just liked the shoes) now reside in style on shadow boxes on the wall outside the bathroom door rather than gathering dust in the back of the closet.
It pleases me to have them out on display like this, these random talismans of my children’s childhoods. It’s possibly a bit odd, creating wall art out of outgrown shoes, but it’s a lot less icky than putting a bunch of lost baby teeth on display.
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Posted by Kimberly on May 26th, 2008 — Posted in The Agony and The Entropy, Kipple
Wow. I’ve been a terrible blogger. It’s been more than two weeks since I’ve even logged in here to blather on about the minutiae of my life. And more like a month since I’ve actually done so. Not out of any plan or design…It’s not like I’m in any kind of self imposed internet exile or anything (at least, not consciously). I just…haven’t. Which sucks. I miss this place.
So, what have I been doing with all that time I haven’t been spending in the blogosphere? Believe it or not, I’ve been cleaning the house.
No, seriously.
And not just cleaning it–organizing.
I know…I know…It’s hard to believe. ME, the Queen of Domestic Chaos, on an organizational spree worthy of a TLC franchise, but there it is. I have fallen under the spell of Debbie Travis. If it weren’t for her and her damn home design collection, I wouldn’t be constantly scanning my apartment, wondering what I can contain next.
My obsession started innocuously enough, with too many pairs of shoes, a thwarted trip to Ikea, and a bored glance through the Canadian Tire flier. It’s just sort of spiraled out of control from there.
First, the shoes were finally all neat and tidy and not cluttering up anywhere! I could find them! Any pair I wanted! It was a dizzying feeling of exhilaration.
Then I started looking at all the hats and scarves and mittens that needed to be packed away…And that was another set of pockets filled.
For a while, I was content like that. I, one of the most cluttered people on earth, had decluttered the front hall and I was feeling pretty darn proud of myself. But everywhere I looked, I kept seeing more and more stuff. Stuff that could go in pockets. Like, the sunglasses, sunscreen, skipping ropes, and other seasonal crap that replaced the mittens and hats that had been safely stored away and were now messing up my newly neat front hall.
And, if I hung the pocket on the outside of the broom closet, it would all be within easy access for the summer! Even better, I could put the swim suits, ballet gear, and Guide uniform there! Sure, doing so would deprive me of the opportunity to play the ever popular “Where’s My…..?” Game, but it was a sacrifice I was willing to make in the name of Debbie and magical pockets.
Slowly but surely, all the available doors in my apartment have been taken over by my new addiction. Makeup, hair accessories, Groovy Girls, underwear…all that random crap that never has a real place of its own is finally contained in what I once thought was that mythical state of being known as “a place for every thing, and everything in its place.”
What’s even more amazing? They’re staying there!
I don’t know if it’s the novelty of actually knowing where things are, or the see through pockets making it that much easier to find things, or simply the magical pixie dust Debbie Travis sprinkles over all her products, but for once, The Ladies actually seem to be on board with the organizational plan. For once, they are not only getting thing from where they go….they’re putting them back.
I’m not saying that there’s not room for improvement. Or even that there’s not still a significant amount of kid rash covering the surfaces of our home. What I’m saying is that for the first time, I think I may have hit on a real life workable strategy for dealing with it.
All I need is a few more doors…..
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Posted by Kimberly on May 12th, 2008 — Posted in The Ladies, Diva Girl, Zen Baby, Kipple
Mother’s Day really isn’t a big deal to me. I of course make sure to honour my own mother with a specially chosen mushy card and token of my affection, appreciation, respect, but for myself the day is a bit of a wash. Solo moms are rarely gifted with tiny velvet boxes and our kisses tend to begin with the kids, not Kay, so the anticipation factor tends to be fairly low–limited to whatever teacher generated craft has come home this year.
Not that the crafts aren’t lovely, wonderful, meaningful, blah blah blah…But really….It’s not like the kid thought this stuff up on her own. And after the “Mom&Me Cookies” debacle back in the first grade, when I was presented with a jar of dry ingredients, a recipe, and an overexcited six year old who spent the entire day nagging me to essentially make my own damn gift, I’ve kinda been soured on the whole teacher-driven maternal appreciation thing.
So, since it seems somehow tacky to encourage the children to remember to tell me how much I rock, I pretty much just let Mother’s Day go except for using it as an excuse to buy myself something pretty. It’s not like I really need the cards and flowers to know that I’m a great mom and they love me, and really, if I have to ask for them, I don’t want them at all. Needless to say, my expectations for this year were, as always, fairly low. I was planning on calling it a red letter day if I got to sleep past 8.
Motherhood is nothing if not surprising, however. And sometimes, even when they make you cry, they are even good surprises.
That, my friends, is my Diva Girl, growing up before our very eyes. Up until now, she’s been reasonably oblivious to the whole Mday experience; like most kids, any occasion that is not designed to culminate in her being showered with gifts doesn’t tend to figure high on her list of priorities. This year, however, for the first time my daughter celebrated Mother’s Day without any external prompting. According to my Mom, who witnessed this little project in the making, it was all Diva directed–she decided on the shape and picture for the card, and then spent an hour with the Zen Baby working on her sister’s poem before creating her own ode to my maternal awesomeness.
You know, little velvet boxes are nice (I got one of those too–also Sabrina’s idea), but they really can’t hold a candle to the genuine love that shines through a poem that contains a line thanking you for letting the kid play in your room. I never really realized just how much I’ve missed getting a Mother’s Day card all these years until I held that painstakingly created cardboard butterfly in my hands on Sunday morning. But that’s ok, because those two poems, a decade in the making, were totally worth the wait.
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Posted by Kimberly on April 17th, 2008 — Posted in Kipple
One of the unexpected bonuses of changing schools this year has been the discovery that there really are kids around here. A whole neighbourhood of them, actually. And right in our backyard!
In the four years we’ve lived here, who knew?
Well, I suppose I always knew there were kids around here, but up until now Diva Girl’s social life has always taken place on the other side of the street–the drawback of a school boundary waiver being that nobody lives where you do. Our top floor address has probably also kept Sabrina out of the mix around here. Not that living in the penthouse makes us too cool to play with the other kids; it’s just darned inconvenient to introduce your daughter to the neighbourhood kids when your baby needs to nap and the big kid just isn’t quite big enough to be out on her own.
Now, however, there is a whole complex full of kids Sabrina knows–kids who are in her class, kids she rides the bus with, kids she sees on the playground, everywhere we turn, more kids. And with the warm weather here and the sun finally making an appearance, they are all outside the minute they drop their backpacks and grab an afterschool snack.
Best of all, Diva Girl is right out there with them.
This year I’ve been trying to loosen the apronstrings enough to at least give the appearance of freedom and responsibility, so I have on occasion allowed her to go out an play without my direct supervision. She’s not really unsupervised–there are a couple of moms out there watching the smaller kids. Moms I’ve talked to enough at the bus stop or while watching our children playing together to feel confident that Brina will be safe while skipping or playing tag outside, even if mine is not the maternal eye under which she is being watched.
Diva Girl doesn’t know that, however. To her mind, she is finally Big Enough to be a Big Kid and she is thrilled. These days she can barely wait to get out and get playing with her friends–There are balls to bounce, places to hide, ropes to jump, and bikes to ride. What there is not is time to wait for her mom and pokey baby sister to tag along with her. She’s much too cool for that now.
I thought it would be harder, watching her run away from me like this. Mostly though, I’m happy for her. Watching her run and shriek and laugh with a gaggle of other children, my heart swells and any sadness over my baby growing up and leaving me behind is wiped away by my satisfaction with how she is growing up–happy, healthy, and unfettered by most of the baggage that comes from living in the 21st Century with a mom who is parenting without a license.
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Posted by Kimberly on April 16th, 2008 — Posted in Kipple
One of the perks of being an adult is supposed to be finally having the ability to eat what you want, when you want it. I mean, who among us has not indulged in popcorn for dinner or pizza for breakfast? What nobody tells you about though is The Kid Clause.
Sure, you can eat whatever you want while you’re living the Carrie Bradshaw life, but once kids enter the picture–and get old enough to notice what Mommy is up to–it’s a whole new ballgame of modeling good eating habits and making sure that Hostess, Lays, Hagen Daz, and Hershey aren’t the names of your four basic food groups. Suddenly it’s all breakfast is the most important meal of the day and dessert after dinner.
We’re having one of those dinners tonight. You know the kind–even though the kids choose the menu, they’re still being pains about eating it. Whining about it. It doesn’t “taste” right. It’s tuna. From a can. How “not right” can it taste??? And of course, with at least half of the dinner I slaved over still on the plate (seriously, that can opener is hard to turn!), they have the nerve to ask for ice cream.
It’s not just that they’re asking for ice cream. Really, that’s just par for the course. The problem here is that I also want ice cream. But, since they can’t have ice cream until they finish their dinners, I can’t have ice cream.
And I finished my dinner. It’s not fair!
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Posted by Kimberly on April 14th, 2008 — Posted in Zen Baby, Kipple
The Zen Baby has a boo boo and apparently it is all. my. fault.
I never told her, you see, that it is a bad idea to stick your finger on a lightbulb.
How could I possibly have been so negligent?
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Posted by Kimberly on April 3rd, 2008 — Posted in Diva Girl, No Pudding Until You Finish Your Meat
I’ve noticed in the past year or so the term “Helicopter Parent” has become part of the parenting lexicon, a label used to describe those overly invested parents who micromanage their kids’ lives–and especially their schoolwork–to the point of pretty much doing everything for them. Other than rolling my eyes at the idea, I’ve pretty much ignored the phenomenon because, well, clearly that’s not me: I’m a very hands off parent, especially when it comes to school; I’ve always believed in allowing Diva Girl to succeed or fail on her own merits rather than making it all about me.
It’s been a conscious choice, this hands off policy I have towards Sabrina’s academic achievement. I recognized early on that one of the more complicated aspects of balancing my career with my children–beyond the daycare juggling, working mom guilt, and other every day concerns of every working mom–would be resisting the impulse to turn my daughter into my student.
Teachers are in a uniquely difficult position when it comes to the education of their children–we have an insider’s understanding of the system and what is required to succeed, which makes it that makes it that much more difficult to refrain from stepping in to ensure that our little preshus gets the best grade possible. It’s a very tempting, very slippery slope, and one that I have no desire to slide down, so I’ve always made an effort to keep home and school separate when it comes to Diva Girl.
For the most part, it’s worked pretty well. Sure, I’ve been tempted to get involved in an assignment or two, confident that I could make it that much better, but the ability to recognize how fundamentally wrong that statement is has always been enough to stop the helicopter blades from rotating before they achieve lift off. Of course, the fact that Diva Girl has always shown herself capable of getting her As and Bs all on her own has made it easier for me to keep my feet planted firmly on the ground and focus more on encouraging her to do her best than what that best is deemed to be.
Until now.
For the first time, Sabrina has brought home a report card filled not with As and Bs, but with Cs and it is challenging everything I believed about myself as the parent of a school aged child. I used to believe that I didn’t put a lot of stock in grades, that Diva Girl’s willingness to put forth her best effort in any given area far outweighed any achievement in my eyes. How then to reconcile a report card that was–to my mind at least–not good enough with my oft-spouted philosophy that your best is always good enough, no matter what the numbers say? Especially when I do believe that despite the lackluster results, she is trying. However I also believe that my daughter is not a C student–two facts that unfortunately seem to be in direct contradiction with each other, given the evidence marching down the report card page.
All of my self-delusions about my lack of unhealthy investment in Sabrina’s school progress came crashing down as I held that report card in my hands, speechless in the face of this unexpectedly lackluster achievement. To be perfectly honest, each C felt like a personal affront–as though they were an indictment of my ability to parent rather than an assessment of Sabrina’s math and reading ability. In other words, as I processed that report, my maternal rotors started turning.
And then my Diva Girl brought me crashing back to Earth with one simple question, “Are you disappointed in me?”
Normally by now I would have already told her how proud I was of her and commented on her various achievements as reported by her teachers. Clearly th fact that I hadn’t done that this time spoke of my disappointment as loudly as if I’d shouted it at her. And looking at all those Cs, I thought about shouting. Looking into those big hazel eyes, however, I thought about how, in the grand scheme of things, a couple of Cs on a fourth grade report card isn’t really that big of a deal and about how my sense of self worth as the parent of a Good Student paled in comparison to my child’s sense of self worth as a Good Person, regardless of her achievements as a student.
I don’t want this not even failure to define my daughter’s sense of who she is and what she can accomplish when she puts her mind to it. While I clearly do not want her to believe that she is a C student, I also don’t want her to think that a C isn’t good enough when she’s giving it all she’s got.
So that’s what we talked about this time–what she thinks she can accomplish and how she can better meet those goals. And of course, as always, we talked about how proud I am of her and how confident I am that she can conquer the world if only she puts her mind to it. What we didn’t do was climb on board my mommycopter –not because I didn’t want to enact a rescue mission, but because even though it’s what I want, I’m still rational enough to know that it’s not what she needs.
Sure, I want to see Sabrina take to the skies and soar, but only if she’s the one at the controls.
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Posted by Kimberly on April 1st, 2008 — Posted in Kipple, Just Like Riding A Bicycle, The Man I Didn't Marry
The Man I Didn’t Marry gave me a ring for my birthday.
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