motherhood

About A Boy


The High School Sweethearts

From time to time  the oldest daughter would shyly announce that she’d “met a boy”.  Sometimes that’d be it. But occasionally a date or two-ish followed only for said “boy” to be quickly banished for his clinging ways or over-enthusiastic interest in her.

One thing about both of my step-daughters that struck me early is that neither one has a clear picture of themselves in relationship to how others see them.  Attention and enthusiasm seem to puzzle them.

That young men notice them is no surprise to me.  Each in her own way is a bright light that naturally draws the eye and incites interest.

The “boy” in question turned out to be the older brother of a friend.  I can’t recall if they’d met previously, but they collided with some force at a party, which found them sitting on the roof, deep in conversation for five hours.

“He thinks I’m funny,” she chirped bemusedly.

He probably thinks you are quite beautiful too, I thought but knew better than to say aloud.

“Anyway,” she continued, “we have a date.”

And we didn’t hear about “the boy” again for some weeks.

Edie will be 28 on Thanksgiving (the Canadian one) this year. Her age and singleness have been a growing concern – to her. Rob was unconcerned. His ambivalence about the girls and “boys” is amusing and reminds me a lot of my own father, who had little visible interest in his children’s marital status*.

I tried to be encouraging without being nosy. I am not her mother. Although we have a good relationship, it is not a deep one. She has her confidants, and I am unlikely to be added to the list. That’s okay. I don’t have expectations of being a mother-like figure for her. I came into her life late, and we simply haven’t had, and most probably won’t have, opportunities to bond in that way.

But I wasn’t surprised that a “boy” would find her funny, want to take her out or discover a way to pursue her without sending her in search of her hidey-hole in the hills. That clever “boy” was bound to show up some day.

On Father’s Day, Edie brought him up again. She’d just gotten back from a long weekend in the States, and he surprised her with wine and flowers.

“He missed me,” she blushed a bit.

At the end of a Sunday supper visit later in the summer, I inquired about whether she would be bringing the “boy”, who now had a name which peppered her conversation, to visit.

“It’s too soon for that,” she said.

And I let it go, but I told Rob I expected we’d meet this “boy” by Thanksgiving.

“I wouldn’t be too sure about that,” he replied.

“Christmas at the latest perhaps, but I am guessing sooner rather than later,” I said.

She brought him around for Rob’s birthday at the end of August. A bit sooner than I thought, and the significance of the occasion wasn’t lost, even on her father.

We knew a lot about him by then.

Edie had breathlessly updated Rob as he lay in the hospital the night of his heart attack. Worried perhaps that she wouldn’t have another chance?

At one point during her gushing, Mick leaned over to me and said, “I wish she’d just marry him and shut up about it.”

Silver is a paragon though this is no surprise as like as he is to Rob.

He is handy. Renovating his first house and flipping it for his current fixer-upper. He’s outdoorsy. Good with the romantic gestures and sweeping a girl off her feet moves in a way that cast me back to my early days knowing Rob.

The clincher, I think, was an extended weekend camping trip he planned for the two of them.

“He’s doing everything,” she said. “And I don’t even have to drive!”

So familiar. The keepers must all get the same playbook handed to them before they embark on a new existence.

His first Sunday dinner with us was enlightening as it was vindicating. He was, however, not what any of us had envisioned.

Rob feigned indifference to the potentially momentous occasion.

“I’ve met boyfriends before,” he said.

“But have they had good jobs, their own transportation and owned property?” I asked.

“Good point,” he said.

And upon first glance, he was handsome with pants that sat at his waist and a ball-cap that just about hid his Dermot Mulroney eyes.

During their first conversation, Silver explained to Rob that he liked to do all the renovation work himself because he was “too cheap to pay someone”, and I had to turn around and find something to do in the dining room to keep from laughing out loud where I found Mick snickering knowingly.

When I commented on that revelation later, Rob simply said,

“Don’t go there.”

Barely a week later, a Facebook message from Edie announced their intention to come to dinner again.

“Why so soon?” I asked. “What’s up?”

“Maybe they just want to spend time with us,” Rob said. “There doesn’t have to be something up.”

But of course there was. The children want to spend time with us only about every six weeks more or less.

I am not Edie’s mother but I did watch** them carefully that first supper. Silver had eyes or a hand on her at all times, and I have seen that look before. It’s the one that says everything in the world that will ever matter is right in front of you, and you still can’t quite believe it.

The second dinner was a family dinner. Teasing and stories and protests that nothing more can possibly be consumed even as hands move to refill plates.

Nothing out of the ordinary.

Until we were at the door, Mick, Silver and Edie saying their good nights. Edie suddenly threw her arms around her Dad’s neck and said,

“So …” Long pause and deep breath expelling a rush of words she’d clearly rehearsed. “I’m moving in with Silver at the end of October.”

Rob blinked but said nothing. This produced a slightly less breathless rush to fill the gap as Edie began to expound on the foolishness of renting a place she was never at anymore and that finding a sublet had been easy and that Rob wouldn’t have to move the couch again – in case he was worried about that.

“Well, I’m certainly not helping with that couch again,” Mick chimed in.

My heart sank a bit at the “rent saving” reason. I don’t think that money should ever be the motivating factor for couples to co-habitate. It should always be based on love, and the realization that a shared journey is the only option for them even if achieving this means scrapping one life, or both, to rebuild the new one together.  Expense, logistics, degree of difficulty are to be treated as details only. And then Silver broke into her monologue with

“And she likes me.”

And she does more than that. She’s giving up the city, her beloved neighborhood of Whyte Ave to move to the suburbs. Her sensible speech was for Rob because all his daughters from oldest to smallest value his opinion and respect and want him to approve and be proud.

“Well, I told you so,” I said.

The next day Rob asked,

“How long have they been seeing each other again?”

“How long did we know each other before we were engaged and I was leaving the U.S. and everything I knew?” I said.

“We weren’t kids,” he countered, “but good point.”

“They aren’t kids. Twenty-eight and thirty-two are firmly in adult territory.”

“Good point again.”

“He’s good for her. She loves him,” I said, “and he fits.”

And now that I have officially blogged about him – he’s family.

*Save for that of my youngest sister. Her habit of breeding with men she either wasn’t interested in marrying or those who were not interested in marrying her drove him to distraction periodically.

**I watch because I care deeply about her happiness and because I have this inexplicable sense of obligation to Shelley to keep watch in her absence. It’s something only mothers would understand, I think.

A Little House-Wife’ng on the Prairie


Oil painting of a scullery maid by Jean-Simèon...

Image via Wikipedia

There is a reason why women abandoned the kitchen in droves once the combined effects of modern conveniences and access to the workplace kicked in. And that reason?

Kitchens are the equivalent of salt mines. Backache inducing, mind-mushing and mostly unappreciated work.

Subtracting the last bit for myself personally because my husband appreciates enormously and often, the aching back and low-level of intellectual stimulation will not induce many of my gender back to the scullery no matter how Home Depot dresses it up.

Today I baked, laundered, raked and tidied.

For hours.

And I am not a pioneer homemaker or even my Grandmother. Despite my personal fetish of mixing up foodstuff from scratch, my wifely arsenal includes an industrial mixer, an oven that doesn’t require the need to stoke it with wood (that would need to be chopped), a microwave, a blender, a food processor and a dishwasher (which praise be to my husband is installed and in service again). And still, the morning and a goodly chunk of afternoon later saw me just finishing and not even close to cleaning or yard-work.

Here’s where the feminists – married some, but mostly single – chime in, “Where is your husband? Division of labor violation alert!”

But he was mixing cement and applying scratch coat to the sides of the house, and seriously, labor division is an illusion. Always was and continues to be this fantasy that ruins more relationships than it should.

Reality is that Rob tends to the big house things – like siding, roofing, knocking out walls, installing hardwood and all things mechanical, electrical and plumbing related. I make the trains run on time, which isn’t glamorous or easy to point a finger directly at most days but necessary none the less.

And I teach yoga. Which is fun and good for me besides while Rob girds up to head back to literally dig a salt mine at a nearby chemical plant. It is neither fun nor good for him – as his recent heart attack attests to.

The point then? There isn’t one aside from the obvious, which is that fair is an ebb/flow thing, and when one gets all bean-counterish about it – joy is naturally sucked right out of one’s  existence.

There is nothing overwhelmingly odious about modern life that probably isn’t self-inflicted by unrealistic expectations that are imposed on us from the outside.

On the Verge of Summer


Solstice came and went earlier this week and already I notice daylight beginning its steady retreat toward the long winter.

But for the near daily late afternoon or evening rain showers, the weather sings. Temperate, mostly sunny and gloriously Albertan, the gamut of the blues competing for dominance behind clouds that seem smashed flat against an invisible ceiling.

School is out today. Normally I would lament ten weeks with child underfoot, but this year I am looking forward to having Dee about 24/7. Eight – nearly – is a wonderful age. Probably the best era of her childhood so far if I factor out the social intrigues.

She danced at the school assembly after all. Went off without a hitch. The mother of her little friend was prevailed upon to allow the girl to perform with Dee though that was not my doing or intention really when I clued the classroom and music teacher to the issue.

I’d sent quick notes just letting them know why Dee wouldn’t be dancing. No blame or hysteria or pleas to intervene. I really was okay with Dee not dancing and she seemed okay too – mostly because she didn’t know the real reasons behind it.

But the music teacher took it upon herself to call the friend’s mother and pointed out that Dee and her daughter were friends and that should supersede everything else. And the mother agreed.

Which also doesn’t surprise me. She’s a decent and reasonable person. She and I just approach life and motherhood differently.

I went to school and helped Dee into her costume and did up her hair before the assembly. I saw the mother whose non-reaction – no smile or wave – pretty much summed it all up.

Awkward, as Dee would say.

I suppose so. Less and less do I care about other people’s take on me as a person. As my mother constantly pointed out to me while I was growing up,

“What other people think of me is none of my business.”

Dee performed in front of the whole school and didn’t miss a beat. The audience was enthralled.

But they are also quite well-trained. As I have mentioned before, the staff and administration at Dee’s school are stellar. I still don’t understand the hesitation on the part of some  parents I have met here about sending their kids there.

Yes, some of the population is working class and some more are quite needy, but none of that really matters at the elementary level. When kids begin to be more influenced by peers than family in the pre-teens is when environment and peers need to be monitored closely, but even then I would argue that a strong teaching staff and an administrative office who lay down the law in a clear and even-handed way is more important than anything else in selecting a school.

But I digress.

Family picnic was yesterday and Rob cleared a bit of his day to attend.

On Wednesday I taught my second yoga class. Everyone in attendance was nursing injury.  A lesson for me in thinking on my firmly pressed into the mat feet.

Teaching yoga continues to be totally awesome.

I had a scare, however, the other night where my future as a yoga instructor is concerned.

Kat sent me an email asking me to redo a question. I’d completely blown it. Didn’t get a single point. And it was a major question.

When I reread what I’d written, I could see right away what I hadn’t done but I also know why I missed it. It was on actions: simple, complementary and counter. A concept that only really started to be clear after the in-class review for the in class test on the Friday of our last session.

That’s the problem with learning – and teaching for that matter. With things needing to be tested and verified for grading and granting of this or that certificate and degree, the real time needed for each student to digest and integrate information doesn’t neatly fit into arbitrary time frames.

You can parrot back facts and theories without really making sense of them.

I know what a simple, counter and complementary action is. Definitions are easy to remember. But actually coming up with examples by pose? That’s just starting to make sense within the last week and a half.

Teaching that first class was a major eye-opener for me. It’s too bad that YogaWorks doesn’t have a component that requires teaching classes outside of the training. Teaching each other within the workshops was never quite the same thing.

But, I wrote the take home a month ago and then moved on to studying for the in-class test and preparing for my sutra presentation and the teaching of my pose.

I passed the last three, by the way.

Kat told us that most people who fail, failed the take home. And I think I know why now. We had a study session for the in-class, but there was nothing comparable for the take home. The reasoning being, I’m sure, that a take home let’s you use books and notes. What it doesn’t allow for is the give and take of the study session. We weren’t supposed to help each other.

There are valid reasons for not allowing people to read each other’s take homes and offer suggestions and ask questions. My personal opinion though is that they don’t apply to yoga – which is collaborative in the training process to a large extent and fosters the idea that we learn from each other through discussion, practice and collaboration.

Awk, the teacher in me is coming out. I see and I critique.

I haven’t heard back since I sent in my reworked question and rather than continuing to hyper-ventilate, I chose to believe that all is well.

As Rob says, the worst thing that could happen is I have to rewrite the test.

So true.

I managed to write for Care2. My posts are both in the hot topics this morning. I’d be pleased but they were written to incite mindless raging commentary and I am certain my poor karma is wilting as a result.

Nothing more for 50 Something Moms though. The blog is closing. The SVM partnership hit an iceberg and as they are unable to resolve it, they are closing. I am torn as to my feelings, but I think it was time for me to move on from it anyway. So, it’s all good.

Stepping away from the keyboard now. Sunshine beckons.