Ironic Mom

It all started off innocently enough. William had brought home a school library book entitled, A Porcupine Named Fluffy. This is a picture book that we used to own, but my twins have a Bachelors of Loving Things To Death and a Masters in Destroying Anything Else. Given their two advanced degrees, I had recycled the remaining pages of this dear book a year ago.

A Porcupine Named ???

William has a penchant for things familiar. Even at age five, he still enjoys watching the Baby Einstein DVD on occasion. I liken it to my affinity for Kraft Dinner: I know I’m beyond it, but sometimes it reminds me of easier days.

So, there I was, reading A Porcupine Named Fluffy, seated cross-legged on the couch with a twin under each armpit. Rereading this once-favourite was a trip down memory lane for all of us, and the conversation about the protagonist, a female porcupine, continued even after I got up to unpack the dregs of Vivian and William’s school lunches.

“I think they should name the porcupine Prickly,” William said.

“No,” Vivian said, “they should name it Prick.”

“Prick’s not a girl’s name,” Will replied.

Nope, definitely not, I thought, scraping mushy apple core from the inside of Vivian’s lunch bag.

Later that day, I picked up the newspaper and read an article about the top baby names of 2009, at least according the vital statistics branch of my province, Alberta. William, my son’s name, ranks 9^th overall, as 197 Albertan boys were given that name last year. Vivian is more unique, with fewer than 20 babies sharing that name. Interestingly, more than two times as many girls were named Kennedy, possibly demonstrating that Alberta just might be the 51^st State.

But neither Kennedy nor Vivian are unique monikers. You want unique? Try these for girls: Peanut, Epic, Fyre, Mischiefs, Twinkle, Comfort.

And for boys? Bison, Chaos, Whip, Mystery, Draco, and – for all you NHL fans out there – Ericlindross (yes, one word).

After reading the lists of bizarre names, I’m starting to think that Prick is sounding pretty good.

This parenting thing baffles me. Generally I’m so lost in a labyrinth of fuzz that I don’t even bother to think about it. But today, I’ll wander back in.

A recent MRI of my brain (post-childbirth). Yes, my head is rectangular.

In many ways, I don’t have high expectations for my twins. I don’t expect (or want) them to be the top of the class, famous actors, or even Olympic athletes, although I have fleeting moments when I feel like pushing them down an icy luge track, with or without the sled. More than anything I want them to be normal, or (do I dare say it?) average.

This won't be one of my kids, unless I lose it and push them down the track

I think my own perfectionist tendencies fell off the cliff when I was pregnant. It was not an easy pregnancy – two bouts of mandatory bedrest in a foreign country, far from my own mom. After the first crisis (bleeding at nine weeks), I panicked. When our Thai doctor did the scan, I just wanted him to say the word “normal.” Or, as he said in his accented English, “Nor-MAALL” (to get the approximate punctuation, it rhymes with “Sore-GAL”).

Every appointment from that point on, I would come armed with a paranoid woman’s list of concerns and he would gratefully answer, “Nor-MAALL, completely Nor-MAALL”.

Later, my husband would imitate me, “Doctor, I’ve grown a third eye and there are mushrooms sprouting from my ears.” “No worries,” my husband would continue his impression, “it’s Nor-MAALL.”

It was then, during those stressful months, that my husband and I hung up our Going-for-Gold armchair parenting mentality and switched to something more lackluster. We weren’t planning to Own the Podium; we were hoping to cross the finish line.

Thankfully, we did. William and Vivian were born with Apgar scores that were good enough.

Now, nearly six years later, I still try to retain this Ode to Nor-MAALL. It’s hard, though. The current parenting culture seems to pressure parents to schedule their kids with activities that would rival the agenda of a CEO. It’s confusing, though, because in striving for Nor-MAALL I don’t want to raise underachieving kids who don’t have the confidence to push themselves.

What do you think? How hard do you push your children?

There are stories that become part of a family’s lore. These are the stories that are pulled out at dinner parties like an old, time-tested joke. Even if people know the punchline, it’s a guaranteed laugh.

The story of my husband taking our five-week-old twins for a stroll in our Bangkok neighbourhood may be one such story. I wasn’t present, but somehow it’s become my story too.

*             *             *

August 2004 — To give me an hour alone in our apartment, my husband decides to take our twins out in the stroller. After he ferries them down in an elevator smaller than our refrigerator, he deposits Thing 1 and Thing 2 into the limousine stroller (which is too long to fit in the elevator).

It is important to note that Bangkok is not stroller – or wheelchair – accessible; it’s barely even pedestrian accessible. If you’re on a fairly quiet street (relative to Bangkok traffic, that is), you push the stroller on the actual street. If you’re on a busy street, you brave the sidewalk and steer around street stall vendors and over two-foot curbs.

On this fateful day, my husband opted for the middle-of-the-road approach, literally.

Deep-Fried Duck, anyone?

So they’re off, bypassing the Chinese-duck-soup woman, the fruit guy, the truck with the squawky loud speaker selling vegetables, the traffic, the elevated sewer grates. You get the idea. It’s mid afternoon which means, like most other times of the day, the sun is relentless and the air is heavy. Breathing can cause you to perspire. If you do the push-the-twins-in-a-stroller obstacle course, a full-scale tourist sweat is guaranteed.

Now my husband is generously proportioned. Plus, he’s in Thailand. To put this in context, I generally wear a medium shirt at any Gap. Plop me in Thailand and I can’t even fit into an XXL top from any Bangkok department store. So, my husband, being big, is supersized in Thailand. This is our fifth year in Bangkok, and –nice as the Thais ares — we’re both more than a little sick of looking out of place.

It’s minute forty of the stroll. My husband’s dodging another tuk tuk and turning the corner, which is as easy as trying to steer an overloaded supermarket cart that has two locked wheels. His shirt is stuck to his back, he’s squinting in the sun, and he’s trying to ignore the jingle of the ice cream bike that’s never quite out of hearing distance.

He’s approaching the motorcycle taxi drivers. On this corner, there’s about twelve of them, outfitted in matching vests, joking with each other, playing the odd game of checkers with bottle caps. They’re doing what they do: entertaining each other while waiting for customers.

Bangkok Motorcycle Taxi Drivers

Smiles on, they watch as my husband heaves the twins past them. They look at the stroller, and chat to each other in Thai.

Then, as my husband trudges further along, one says, “Hey, farang! Fat!”

My husband pauses. He knows farang means foreigner. And he’s sick of the fat jokes.

“Ya,” chimes another, “fat!”

My husband stops and looks back. “What did you say?”

“Fat!” one repeats.

My husband yells obscenities at them. I would exceed the word limit of this blog if I bothered to list them all.

He takes a short cut home.

Later that day, we share the story with a Thai friend. She proceeds to tell us that “fat” (or something very near to that pronunciation) means twins in Thai.

Cultural confusion 1, Cultural harmony 0.

For our remaining months in Bangkok, my husband avoids the motorcycle drivers…especially when he’s pushing our fat.

One of my favourite blogging hobbies is to look at the search terms people use to get to my site.

Since I’ve only been blogging since November (which, granted, is forever in terms of the internet), no one finds my site by searching for “hilarious mom” or “sarcastic parent.” But they find it by searching for bizarre enough stuff, like “angry little people,” “two leg dogs,” “having a baby is like funny,” and “σκορπιος ζωδιο” (?), as well as the terms described below.

Weird Search Term 1: “annoying Christmas letters”

More people have found my blog this way than by searching for my actual name. Also interesting is the fact that many of the searches for “annoying Christmas letters” came in January, which leads me to the conclusion that a number of people are incensed at their 2009 holiday mail.

Weird Search Term 2: “choking on a weeble”

I sincerely like to think that this search was conducted by a parent or journalist conducting research on the safety of toys. My fear is that someone whose toddler was blue in the face took the time to google this, seeking instructions on doing the Heimlich Maneuver. That weeble is unlikely to wobble out of your child’s trachea on its own while you read my latest rant on the year’s worst toys. Call 9-1-1, people.

If your child is doing this, don't google "choking on a weeble"

Weird Search Term 3: “bangkok pregnant sex”

It scares me that this trio of words sends someone to my blog. It scares me even more that someone searched for this. I mean we all know of Bangkok’s infamy, but what sort of Thai vacation is someone out there planning?

Weird Search Term 4: “congealed twins”

If you’ve ever been to a church pot-luck dinner (or to my grandma’s house), you’ve had Jell-o with things (pineapple, shredded carrots, fruit cocktail) suspended in it. Well, my image of congealed twins is not unlike this. Tempting as it may be to temporarily silence my five-year-olds during their moments of intense loopiness (like during The Tantrum), I have not yet succumbed to throwing my twins in the bath with Costco portions of pectin.

Congealed Twins: add pectin and stir

Drawing by Sam Burke

Weird Search Term 5: Leanne Shirtliffe [colleague’s name] marriage

Someone googled my name plus the name of my colleague with the word “marriage” beside it. Now I am married, just not to my colleague. We’re good friends, my kids adore him, and he’s also a friend of my actual husband. Proof positive that inquiring minds, though often wrong, are highly inventive. I’m starting to think that blogging just might be more entertaining than reading a tabloid.

Let the fun continue.

Now it’s your turn: if you’re a blogger, what bizarre search engine terms have brought visitors to your blog?

I thought I was done with tantrums.

I mean, my twins are nearly six, and we’ve had one year free of embarrass-mom-in-public moments.

Most tantrums I barely remember, my body activating the Parenting-Amnesia reflex, the one that enables moms and dads to crawl out of bed the next morning at 5:45.

There are some vague memories of tantrums floating around my hippocampus, though. I can recollect fireman-carrying my son out of a bookstore when he was three, screaming and kicking through the Children’s Section, the Self-Help Section, and then the Fiction Area (how I wished it were fiction). I can remember dragging my daughter’s arm through the library turnstiles, knowing the rest of her body would follow….all to that two syllable Meltdown Soundtrack of “Mommmmeeeee,” screamed with the urgency only children can.

So needless to say, I was gobsmacked by my son’s twenty-minute tantrum at the mall last week.

After post trauma analysis, this meltdown revealed a cause-and-effect relationship:

KNUCKLEHEADED PARENTING IDEA = TANTRUM = OPPORTUNITY FOR PARTIALLY-REDEEMING PARENTING MOMENT

Allow me to elaborate.

Knucklehead Parenting Idea, Part 1:

My kids were quick enough to potty-train during the day, but ultra-slow to demonstrate bladder control at night. I should have left well enough alone: they’re water drinkers, their doctor said not to worry, and the pull-ups did the job. But, tired of spending 50 cents a day on diapers, I introduced The Reward. In this case, Build-a-Bear: you know, that chance to spend $40 on a stuffed animal wearing a baby shirt?

Of course, Vivian, being extremely competitive, rose to the challenge. She was night-trained months ago, and never forgot the Build-a-Bear promise.

Knucklehead Parenting Idea, Part 2:

Take both kids to Build-a-Bear to purchase a reward for one kid. Yup, this follows much the same logic as opening a can a beer in front of a newly recovering alcoholic. I explained to William that we’d get him a Good Brother Award somewhere else (“At the Dollar Store?” he asked, genuinely excited). But when he saw the machinations of Build-a-Bear and the menagerie of stuffies, he freaked out. A good mother would’ve predicted this tantrum. Not me.  If I once saw the glass half full, it was now empty and cracked.

Tantrum:

Full-on, writhe on the floor, scream, beg, jump-up-and-down, cajole. The thing was, I partly agreed with him. It was unfair. So I called my husband for moral support – or to ask for permission to get William a Build-a-Bear too. My husband encouraged me to stand firm. More tantrum. Screaming. To one passerby mother, I said, “Want another son?” She looked at me with schadenfreude. I called my husband again. He said he had no idea what to do. But that brief adult contact gave me my idea.

Opportunity for Good Parenting:

“We’ll go buy you two toys, William!” I said, mustering as much enthusiasm as I could. He stopped writhing and said, “You’re not listening to me, mom.”  Fair enough. I paused, trying to repress my solve-all-conflicts gene. He continued, “It’s not fair. And I’ll never get Build-a-Bear. I still pee in my pull-up. I try not to, but I still do.”

What a freaking awful mom I am I was I sometimes am. Epic fail. On so many levels here.

Like this is fair

So I listened, so we went to a department store, so the Patron Saint of Stressed-Out Mothers smiled upon me: we found an $8 stuffy with the name “William” on it. There was no Vivian teddy bear, nor was there a Leanne bear. But there was a William. Finally, he felt special and appreciated. A chocolate mini-egg rounded out Toy 2. And when we returned to Build-a-Bear, the kind worker (who witnessed the tantrum at her store front) did a give-your-bear a heart ceremony on his stuffy too.

Good to know that I have to go through this one more time…when William gets his Build-a-Bear after his nighttime pull-ups are history. Not to mention every night when he sees his sister’s gigantic pink bear named Heartsy.

The Olympics’ theme song, I Believe, has been getting a lot of airplay. Makes sense, since it’s The Winter Olympic Games and all. If you haven’t heard it, you’re clearly living in a media-deprived world, which begs the question: how are you reading this blog?

I’ve posted the shortest version I could find. Feel free to hit mute.

Hearing the mantra “I Believe” sixteen times has made me think what it is that I believe, at least in that ironic sense of parenting.

Here, then, is My Parenting Manifesto:

I believe that children are our future my present.

I believe that if I think about my children and the future that I will hyperventilate.

I believe that my children will grow up to be pre-teens who wield sarcasm like a weapon.

I believe that I will be the recipient of most of the sarcastic blows.

I believe that my kids will not be professional actors, athletes, or models.

I believe this to be a good thing.

I believe that I will like the stage where my kids can clean the bathrooms.

I believe that this stage will increase our arguments and their use of sarcasm.

I believe that my children will continue to embarrass me by misbehaving in public.

I believe that I will return the favour when they’re teenagers.

I believe my children will talk to a therapist one day about how I messed them up (possibly by blogging).

I believe that they will talk to a therapist no-matter-what, so I might as well do it anyway.

Now it’s your turn: what do you believe? What should be added to this Parenting Manifesto?

Reason 1: It’s better than Kid-TV.

I’m not sure what your least favourite kids-TV show is, but we prefer to be patriotic in our loathing. On Canada’s homegrown Treehouse TV, 4 Square is the most despised program in our household, especially the segments featuring four dancers in unitards. If you don’t know this show, cross overly enthusiastic adults with the Teletubbies and put them in luge outfits. Add annoying music that snakes its way into your memory, and you have fodder for driving the sanest person loony.

Much like how Pavlov conditioned dogs, my husband taught our kids to turn off the TV before the 4 Square music starts. Once the TV screen flashes orange, Vivian and William sprint for the off button like two speed skaters accelerating when the gun is fired.

I mean, seriously, if I want to see adults in form-fitting uniforms, I’ll turn to the Olympics, thank you very much.

Reason 2: It reminds you that life with kids is one big event.

As I mentioned in a previous blog, there is so much repetition involved in parenting that there could be a Parenting Olympics. In fact, life with kids seems to be one big event that never ends, or so my mother tells me.

Following the Olympic torch relay? Try taking twins to the zoo or a mall without a stroller.

Carting lots of equipment? Try taking a road trip – or doing a simple errand – with two toddlers. Hello baggage, literal and metaphorical.

Coordinating the Opening and Closing Ceremonies? Try planning a kid’s birthday party these days, which has made the word “theme” a dirty word in my house.

Living on the edge? Try driving a minivan on a freeway when your daughter’s favourite stuffy has tumbled under a seat.

It’s safer to watch The Olympics with your butt on the couch.

Reason 3: It gives you more to aspire to than post-bedtime silence.

I’m a sucker for Olympics commercials. They’re almost as tear-worthy as ads for Hallmark or The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Or the winner of the final showcase on The Price is Right (I have a friend who tears up when someone wins).

And when (or if) that Canadian anthem plays, I may tear up. I figure it’s a healthier outlet than crying while my son has a tantrum in the middle of the mall (an actual event earlier today). It’s also more socially acceptable to sob in the privacy of your own home rather than outside Build-a-Bear while your son is writhing on the floor for twenty minutes.

Reason 4: For 17 days, it gives you something to talk about other than your kids.

If I watch the Winter Olympics, I will have something to contribute to conversations other than stories of how my lack of sleep is driving me batty. Not that I have many conversations with adults other than my husband, but still, even if I’m talking to him, I can say things like, “What did you think of that triple Salchow?” I will feel like an expert momentarily, until he tells me it was a double Lutz.

Reason 5: It’s an excellent way to exercise.

I don’t care what people say, but you can exercise while watching TV. I cannot watch downhill skiing without clenching my abs and leaning into the turns. I cannot watch a men’s or women’s gold medal hockey game without doing a few hundred squats from rising off the couch in excitement. And if Canada doesn’t win both hockey golds, thousands of us will be balling in a corner, in a nationally-inspired yoga move, also known as Child’s Pose.

The yoga pose Canadians will adopt if our hockey teams don't win gold.

Watching the Olympics just may be the original Wii Fit.

Here’s to putting the kids to bed early so I can watch even more Olympic coverage.

Photo courtesy of Daniel Case, used under a Creative Commons ShareAlike License

There’s a certain stare-death-in-the-face quality to the Winter Olympics.

Figure skating involves blades that can slice flesh. The game of hockey combines freshly sharpened skates with 100 MPH slap shots. Then there’s downhill skiing: where speed meets the very real possibility of hurtling off a cliff, unless some orange-colored mesh fencing miraculously catches your Gumby body while it cartwheels through the air. If the polyethylene doesn’t stop you, you’re now competing in a different Winter Olympic sport: ski jumping.

Another Winter Olympic Candidate for Club MRI

If you take away the mountain and add a weapon, you have biathlon. Even in curling, the grandparent of the Winter Games, there’s danger: you can fall on the ice and suffer a concussion, all while someone who’s red in the face yells “harder!”

In terms of danger, the Winter Games are the UFC to the Summer Olympics’ hatha yoga. I’m sure running a marathon in under three hours is hard, but a momentary loss of focus is unlikely to kill you. To get the same possibility of death that exists at the Winter Olympics, the IOC would have to introduce new sports to the Summer Games, like combining synchronized swimming with archery, or adding 10-metre diving into a shallow pool.

Like This Looks Safe

Of the winter sports, skeleton is king of crazy. Any sport whose name is synonymous with death and decay has to be number one on the psycho list. If there were a Darwin Award for a Winter Olympic sport, it would go to skeleton. I mean, who in their right mind would dive headfirst onto a cafeteria tray and careen down a mile of ice at speeds close to 100 clicks with their chin a mere inch from the ground? One inch. That’s 25 millimetres, people.

Even the technical jargon associated with skeleton reveals how it’d fail any risk assessment. One of these terms is G-Force. In skeleton, G-Force refers to the pressure that keeps the athlete on the sled while it corners. So move over fighter pilots and astronauts; you’re wearing protective gear, not experiencing G-Force in a unitard. When Newton saw an apple fall from a tree, I’d bet he didn’t envision a human bullet propelling down an icy slide of death…by choice.

Rumour has it that, in addition to nutritionists and psychologists, several skeleton teams employ neurologists and receive front-of-the-line passes to MRI clinics. Play your vertebrae right (or wrong), and it just could be a gateway sport for entry to the next Paralympics.

It’s hard to imagine parents putting their child in skeleton. Then again, maybe not.

Still, you have to wonder what skeleton athletes (who I think should be called skeleteers) would do for a career if they weren’t donating their body to spinal cord research. I’m thinking crash-test-dummies. Perhaps Toyota could use surviving skeleteers to test sticky accelerators.

I have to wonder why Canadians do relatively well at these sports. Yes, there’s the climate argument: it’s cold and we need something to do. But as the stereotype goes, we’re polite with a side order of inferiority complex. Is there an edgier side to us or — more likely — do the Olympians represent a tiny fraction of our population, the same type of people who are likely to climb K-2 or play with hairsprays and lighters for fun?

Whatever the reason, the Winter Olympics are pure entertainment. And for the next two weeks I will yell at my children to be quiet as I marvel at those risk takers from the comfort of my couch. The only skeleton I’m going near is the one in my closet.

A Former Skeleteer Being Rescued from the Track

Let the games begin.

Will you be watching?

Photos used under a Creative Commons ShareAlike Lisence,

courtesy of Tsutomu Takasu, Profile Andjam79 & Tammra McCauley

There should be an Olympic Games for moms and dads. Now there’s an endurance competition that’d test your focus. As a parent, not only would you get to compete, but you’d get to be your own trainer, nutritionist, psychologist, and sponsor. As an added bonus,  you always get play… even if you’re severely sick, injured or depressed.

So what sports would the Parenting Olympics have?

Sport One: Showering

In the real Olympics, showering occurs after the event; if you’re a parent, showering is the event. Although I can barely recall the time my twins were newborns, I can remember showering. When I managed to squeeze this in, it often involved two babies strapped into car seats on the bathroom floor. Shampoo, condition, soap, shave: in under two minutes. It puts the mental back in environmental.

Warning: Repeated Diaper Changing Can Cause Carpel Tunnel Syndrome

Sport Two: Diaper Changing

I’ve written about the ability of newborns to poo in Jackson Pollack patterns. But seriously, nappy changing is the 100 metres of the Mom-and-Dad Games. If you can’t diaper in under 9 seconds, go back to the starting block. And pay attention: there are separate heats for disposable and cloth.

Parenting Olympics: Juggling

Sport Three: Juggling

My mother frequently says that moms can cook a whole turkey dinner with one hand tied behind their back. With weeks of practice with your latest accessory, a baby on your hip, you stir the pasta, talk on the phone, and sign a form for your preschooler. This event runs daily…and sometimes hourly.

Sport Four: Car Seat-Stroller Relay

I’m pretty sure some childless hermit invented the majority of strollers. For amusement, try wheeling one through a snow-packed parking lot, extracting your child, tethering the crying babe to the car seat, and collapsing the stroller. Deductions for any swearing.

Sport Five: The Modern Day Pentathlon

Here are the five events of the mommy-a-thon: get child dressed, fed, into snow gear, into minivan, to daycare or school. Bonus if child does not cry. Automatic medal if neither of you cries.

So when your kids fall asleep and you manage to flop in front of the TV to watch psycho Winter Olympic athletes careen down perilous slopes, just remember that most of them couldn’t do your job either.

What parenting sport have you medalled in?

Photos courtesy of  Rick Fawcett and fdecomite, used under a Creative Commons ShareAlike License.

There are days when I feel that half a day has passed and it’s not even 8:15 a.m. Usually that thought hits me on the drive to school. Usually it’s in winter, after an endless search for a missing mitten.

It’s a miracle if we all make it into the minivan without me threatening to sell the children.

And then there’s the drive.

Driving: A Struggle To Arrive with Kids Alive

A couple of years ago, in a good parenting moment, I started playing Math with them while driving. I gave them number problems, and they figured out the answer (or not). The game went like this: “If Mommy, Daddy, Vivian, and William are home, and Grandma and Grandpa come to visit, how many people are in the house?”

They’ve become pretty good at it, too. So good, that I’ve started taking creative license with our problems. On a recent family outing, the scenario was this: “If Vivian and William are throwing Cheerios at each other and Daddy is still sleeping, how many people are left when Mommy runs away?”

Nothing like passive aggressive behaviour to make me feel better.

Lately, there’s been even more numbers swirling around our minivan. Every day for the past three months, Vivian and William have been telling me how many days they’ve been in school. Apparently their teachers told them they’d have a 100 Days of School party, and they’re using this as counting practice. The idea of 100 days doesn’t sound too bad, but add to it the fact that I’m a teacher and I’m in a slow-mo time warp.

“We’ve only been in school 93 days?” I ask one January Monday.

The day passes.

“It’s only Day 94?” I ask Tuesday. I’m more than aware that I teach 190 days of school each year. My math is good enough to know that we’re not even halfway there. No wonder why experts peg the end of January as the most depressing time of the year.

100 Days: Protective Gear Recommended

Day 100 closes in. New problem: each kid needs to bring 100 of something to school that day.

“How about hairs?” I ask. “There’s more than 100 on your head.”

It takes a while to silence their mass protest.

Vivian decides to bring her shell collection. William decides to bring 100 wheels (also known as 25 toy cars).

The 100^th day – yesterday – goes well enough. It’s over, and for that I’m grateful.

Now, only 90 more to go.

Photos courtesy of Mykl Roventine and Pascal, used under a Creative Commons ShareAlike License