She's one of my Facebook friends

I saw the perfect man today.

 

He was small, maybe even lean. His pock-marked face was framed by flat, brown, seventh-grade feathered back hair. He was wearing dark khakis with a boring navy and brown striped button down. He was slight of build. But most notably he was whistling through his teeth while he waited to pay for his coffee.

I’m not kidding, he was whistling through his teeth. His lips weren’t puckered, blowing out, the way I sometimes see Deaglan trying to whistle. His tongue was stuck up in the roof of his mouth. His top lip was stretched over his top teeth, and a low tuneless melody escaped; all the while his black eyes darted from one thing to the next.

 

He was perfect.

 

And I considered seriously, for a few minutes, contacting Dexter’s people to let them know I’d found their next villain. Maybe not a high profile axe murderer, but he could certainly make a compelling neighbourhood stalker-type.

Clearly, I need to stop with my Netflix preoccupation. And it wouldn’t hurt to ease up on how often I check into my Facebook account each evening either.

Last week at a funeral, I saw an old friend who I hadn’t spoken to since Matthew’s funeral. We hugged and confirmed that we needed to stop meeting this way. After that, we had very little to say to each other. We joked that that there was no need to ask about how the other was doing; we already knew.

 

She’s one of my Facebook friends.

 

On the one hand I rarely feel the need to call anybody anymore, which works out well these days since my boys turn into home-wrecking maniacs anytime I’m on the phone. People know how we’re doing by reading my blog and I know how they’re doing by paying attention to their Facebook updates. It’s all very handy.

 

I wonder though about the long-term effects. Where are we really going with all this?

 

Oh don’t get me wrong, nothing delights me more than the perfect outfit pin, or a 30-second video of somebody’s baby walking for the first time  or a cost-effective bathroom renovation. I can’t get enough of that kind of thing.

 

It’s the pressure Facebook, Pinterest and personal blogs seem to put on us:

 

To be happy

To post the perfect picture of ourselves

To get more DIY

To present a pin-worthy, photo-shopped, all is joyous in our house version of ourselves.

 

This is what has me wondering. And worrying a little.

 

But maybe it’s just me.

 

Maybe I just wish I could make my kids a birthday banner from recycled orange juice cartons, do a triathlon before 9 am and announce to the world that with no provocation whatsoever, my husband booked me into a spa for the day while he organized our linen cupboard and did crafts with the kids.

 

 

These are my birthday flowers from Shaune and the boys. Deaglan said he picked them out because he just knew they were my favourite. After watching his eyes sparkle while he told me this, these easily are my favourite flowers.

 

My friend Shannon came by last Saturday morning with these beauties, balloons and a new monogrammed coffee cup.

 

I take none of it lightly

You people.

You lovely, kind people. The things you said in your comments on that last post. Well, words can’t explain how much those things mean to me.

Thank you.

And to my Facebook friends: the ones who always comment on my posts (Frank I’m talking to you), the ones who send me private messages to let me know that something I wrote struck a chord or just that they liked it, and the ones I see in real life in the halls at work who stop to tell me they read one of my posts; to all of you, thank you. Thank you!

You should know I take none of it lightly.

I was feeling good about this and  about life in general despite the fact that we seem to have entered phase two of winter around here, the opposite of Indian summer, when I realized I forgot to tell you that in a few short days, Shaune will once again be a homemaker. Then I realized that I forgot to tell you that he got another temporary teaching job in the first place.  The technical term for which is long term occasional or LTO if you’re in the business.

Yup, lucky for us, once again someone needed surgery.

Last year he replaced a teacher who was having his elbow operated on. It gave him six months of work. Yay bum elbow! And then this past September he got a call to step in because another teacher needed his shoulder fixed. Greedily, my first thought was, that other shoulder isn't going to fix itself.

Maybe you’re thinking we should be taking a long hard look at the obvious. Elbow replaced? Shoulder surgery? What kind of work has Shaune gotten himself into? Will he one day come home and tell me they need to operate on his thumbs? Replace his forearm? We have thought of that and it’s hard to say for sure so we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.  Besides, on most days I remember to tell him to be careful.

But it is hopeful that in the two years since graduating from teacher’s college, an industry everyone thought he was crazy to get into because of all the budget cuts our province has been making, he’s worked steadily at least half of each year.

He’s developed really good relationships with two principals and many, many teachers. Just last night a group of lady hospitality teachers took him out for dinner to celebrate the end of his LTO and to let him know how sad they were that he was leaving. They’d all told him on different occasions how much they liked working with him. A few said they appreciated that he always came over to their classrooms to say hi or discuss a lesson plan.

He was hesitant at first about going, just him and five ladies, some who are close enough in age to be his mother, but in the end he went and I think, had a good time. I heard him come in around ten so it couldn’t have been all talk about grandkids and gardening. Although, if they had discussed gardening for any length of time, they would have had his undivided attention.

He’s a food nerd on all levels.

Now he’ll go back on the supply list; take substitute teaching gigs whenever he gets calls. But more importantly I’ll have gained a Nanny. A handy, handsome nanny who does windows! Oh sweet, sweet unemployment. If last year is any indication, he’ll take the kids to their respective places. Every morning (!)

He’ll pick them up. 

Every afternoon (!)

He’ll have the house clean and dinner ready.

Every day (!!)

And if that isn’t enough to make me want to increase my pay scale to make this situation permanent, he’ll tackle another big project in the realm of home improvement. I’ve thought it through and already have come up with an itemized list in descending order of importance. It’s been just short of impossible to not fantasize about coming home to brand new curb appeal. I stay up late imagining the possibilities for the upstairs bathroom.

Obviously, and not to mention ideally, we need him to be gainfully employed. I mean it isn’t right that I’m over the moon at the thought of him being available should the school or daycare call because one of the kids is sick. Or that I'm practically giddy because now I could seriously consider doing one of the morning classes at the gym. It's not right.

Right?

And finally, we can get back to eating like this. These are all dishes he's made in the past when the only kitchen he cooked in was ours.

Not writing is unacceptable

Okay.

I’ve been trying to write this post for over an hour now.

But I’ve got Naveen smooshed in  close. My left arm is practically sewn to that side of my stomach. I tried to lure him over to the long couch where Deaglan is watching a mildly disturbing cartoon on Teletoon called Rocket Monkey. But he insisted that he wanted to cuddle and because I’m no fool and totally get that my days of unprovoked cuddling are likely numbered, here we are.

It’s the usual way I get any writing done around here.

It forces me to pre-think my posts for a few days. I let an idea roll around my head until the thought of not writing it is unacceptable. I rifle through some of the stuff I’d been taking mental note of: Things the kids said. Comical scenarios I conjured up on a run. Ridiculous interactions I had with people. A song I heard. Something I read that stuck with me. Rare moments I might have allowed gratitude to fill me.

And then when I can’t take the not writing of it anymore, I sit down on the recliner in the living room, and do my best to create a first draft. By then I need to get this post idea down, so I can usually keep the nagging insecure voice in my head at bay for a few minutes.

The relentless voice that wants me to know what a stupid piece of writing this will be. The one that reminds me that only a handful of people read my blog these days and most of them do it out of obligation because they know me and think I might expect it. And they will definitely think it’s a stupid post. And another instance of over-sharing.

I also force myself to tune out any pre-conceived notions of good writing pestering me. I just want to tap the idea out onto the screen first.  Once it’s all there I start editing. Sometimes this part takes me a few days. I might sit down after dinner three nights in a row and keep rewriting the essay until it feels right.

  

But sometimes the editing takes only an hour.

My only gauge is whether or not I’m happy with it. If I am, I hope like crazy there’s a photo on our camera I can download. In the summer there’s never a shortage. The light is good and lasts long into the evening. It helps that we’re outside all the time, unburdened by layers of clothing. Shaune is usually more willing to cooperate with my insistence that we capture the kids. It helps if I remind him that time is just flying by. The kids are not going to be five and two forever!

But in the winter, good clear light is a commodity. And even I know how lame the flash setting can make a picture look. I always hope for a good shot of the kids in natural light. And if there is one or a photo relevant to what I’m writing about, then I take a few minutes to edit that too.  

I then upload the picture (s) and copy and paste my piece into Blogger. This is   precisely when I play around with the publish preview button to get a sense of what the post will look like on my blog. I’m always amazed how much more editing I need to do at this point. Something that might seem to work in a word document might read totally wrong in a blog post.

I edit and preview, edit and preview and edit and preview. 

Then I bite the bullet and hit publish.  I read the post again, live and on the internet. And because there's no threat of something I've written going viral,  I might edit again if something just isn't sitting right with me.  I also check to make sure my post published to my facebook account.

The last thing I do is take a deep breath. In more recent years the deep breath is accompanied by a conscious letting go. 

I hope for the best that my writing will be received well and I carry on with the rest of my night with these knuckleheads.

Like any good mother, I take every opportunity to dress them alike. Gramma and Grampa brought these T-shirts back from their recent trip to Portugal. The shirts say "My grandparents are cool." 

Chapstick is a really big deal around here. I try not to analyze how gross it is that they both find it delicious.

The thing about Pinterest

This morning on my run, I decided that when I got home I was going to bake Halloween cupcakes with the boys. I took mental inventory of the ingredients we had in the cupboards– a Betty Crocker cake mix, a handful of chocolate chips, food colouring and sprinkles and enough icing sugar to make a simple frosting. 

The endorphin high around the seventh kilometer had me envisioning a Pinterest worthy scene, where the boys were licking batter off mixers while I pulled light fluffy golden cupcakes out of the oven to cool. I imagined us sitting at the table, happily decorating each cupcake with colourful frosting, a little dab on Naveen’s nose, while I snapped adorable pictures to post here.

I hate when the kids deliberately ruin my good parenting moments. I mean don’t they understand I’m trying to make memories here?

If I wasn’t begging Deaglan to stop eating the cake mix to which I hadn’t even added the wet ingredients, well then I was chasing Naveen around the house to retrieve my measuring cups and spatula. And after I fished 48 pieces of eggshell out of the bowl because Deaglan was being such a great helper, I practically had to put him in a headlock to find out where the vanilla extract was. He’d shoved it into one of his rocket ships so that I had to use the skinniest tongs we own and with the precision of a surgeon liberate the small container from within the bowels of the toy.

Finally when I’d set the sprinkles and icing on the table, told the boys they each had a decorating station of their own there was a five minute stretch of arguing about who had more sprinkles. Pinching and shoving ensued so that wearily I had to threaten time outs and promises that no one would be eating any bloody cupcakes if this continued.

It made me think of something my brother Craig’s wife posted yesterday -  one of those signs you see everywhere on facebook these days. It said:

Someday we’ll find out that Pinterest is a conspiracy created by a group of men who are tricking women everywhere into cooking, cleaning and working out.

Working your way to a mediocre day - a how-to

If you wake up Sunday morning, miserable and ready to fight with whoever makes too much eye contact, there’s really only one thing to do: see if you can get rid of your entire family for a few hours. It helps if your husband can be convinced that he owes you one. Capitalize on even the faintest hint of imbalance to buy yourself some solitude. You took the kids to a friend’s yesterday so he could work on the floors uninterrupted?

He clearly had the better deal.

Once he agrees to get himself and the kids out of your hair, it’s in your best interest to get them ready and out the door – you don’t need him wandering aimlessly looking for the baby’s shoes. On a good day this can rub you the wrong way. Today? It could push you over the edge.

Once they’re gone, make yourself a second cup of coffee and take five minutes to soak in how rotten life is.

And mental note this – write it down if you have to: The next time you’re feeling vulnerable and emotionally generous, promise to keep your theories to yourself. Telling your already fed-up and cranky husband that you might be suffering from a low-grade depression due to weaning your two-year old will most definitely come back to haunt you. Because when next you are acting irritated and unreasonable for seemingly no good reason, he will wax psychologist and suggest you look into hormone replacement therapy.

He won’t care when you accuse him of having paid attention to that Oprah episode.

Drink your coffee and read a few pages of Anne Lamott or Jon Kabat-Zinn but whatever you do, don’t check your Facebook account. If you do, you’ll selectively hone in on only those friends with suspiciously flawless lives – you know who I’m talking about: they’ve already run 10K, cleaned their houses and are now enjoying some educational outdoor time with their perfectly behaved children. And it’s not even 9 am.

Decide to do something that will make you feel better but keep your expectations low. Feeling even a smidgeon better than this will be an improvement.

I suggest cleaning the upstairs bathroom. Especially if looking at the disarray of downstairs due to renovations is making you crazy enough to commit yourself just to have a clean room to live in. Scrub the toilet. And the tub and the sink. You may have to go so far as the floors.  

It’s possible you’re feeling this bad.

Once you get going, you’ll naturally move onto the bedroom. Vacuum up the crackers next to your bed – stop berating yourself for letting the kids eat in your room. It was the only way to get them to settle down enough so you could enjoy one lousy glass of wine before starting the bedtime routine after a long day at work.

Prepare yourself for their return. Have a plan because your husband will likely storm through the door acting entitled and overwrought – after all, he just had the kids for two hours and will point out that you of all people should know how much work that is.

When the kids get in, bring them upstairs because there is no furniture in the living room. Put the baby gate up, turn on Treehouse and tell them you’re going to take a shower. Don’t feel guilty for putting TV on mid day because they were just at the splash pad for a few hours, they could use the break.

Try to resist the urge to weigh yourself before getting into the shower– it could wreak havoc with your delicate emotional state. But if you do give into the urge, don’t (and I repeat, DON’T) weigh yourself a second time to verify that you indeed are down two pounds. It could be a technical glitch with your digital scale and your temporary high, that sense of possibility that all your hard work at the gym is paying off finally, will be short lived, reinforcing that you do actually have a crummy life because on top of everything else you are bloated, overweight, homely and unfairly afflicted with adult acne.

And because it's now your turn to entertain the kids, go somewhere you can tolerate. Costco has a lot going for it. Woo them with hotdogs in the cafeteria and fulfill your need to restock the things you're running low on.

My facebook friends

I was a facebook snob. I said things like I refuse to get a facebook account! And if I heard of someone else boycotting facebook, I raised a fist in solidarity and said good for you!

I can admit when I'm wrong.

Because let's face it, it's pretty fun. Stay-in-your-pyjamas-all-day-because-your-baby doesn't-sleep-but-still-have-contact-with-the-outside-world-kind of fun.

You may find yourself connecting with gals from high school, finding all new reasons to be friends. Tracy, Tina and I are all moms to boys. They read my blog and leave wistful comments like wish we had blogging technology when our boys were babies. Their sons are teenagers. Through them I can get a glimpse of my future. A positive glimpse - not the the loony-getting-carried-away-with-worry kind of images my mind is capable of. At 18 and 15, Tracy's boys still give her hugs and kisses before bed. Tina's boys are the same ages and she says she gets compliments all the time from teachers, neighbours and friends that her kids are polite and caring. Here's a picture of Tina's boys.

You get to see little monkies like this one (Tracy's nephew) win cute baby contests...you're not surprised he won are you?

And you get to marvel that you are reunited with your friends from Tucson. Especially when at the end of grade eight you were certain your world had ended because your family moved back to Sarnia, Ontario. You corresponded through letters but eventually lost touch. Letters!!

And through facebook you can't believe it but you slip into an easiness with each other as if 25 years hadn't passed since you last spoke!

It's good. Facebook.

Because while reading Robert Munsch's Down the Drain to your three-year old you might find yourself smoothing his hair back from his forehead.

And he might say what are you doing Mommy?


And you might say something like smoothing your hair honey - do you like it?


And without hesitation he might say no stop it.

Times like that it's nice to know you have some friends on facebook!



I want to post your pictures to my blog once a week! Tag me or post your shots to my wall and I'll include them. Only post pictures that belong to you please.