Tag: memories

A Rock and a Hard Place

On By LynnIn TurtleHead6 Comments

My parents were divorced when I was 13 years old, and I never saw my father again. My mother became a true single mom — caring for four daughters 100% of the time, no coffee breaks, no holidays, no sick days. She did the grocery shopping, cut the grass, helped with homework, cleaned the bathrooms, fixed the plumbing, sealed the driveway, and repaired our toys. She did it all.

It’s only now that I’m a mom too that I realize what a huge, unbearable, impossible job she did. It’s not just the being available all the time, the never having time to yourself, the putting of others’ needs first. It’s the fact that you have no support, no one to turn to at the end of the day who is in the trenches with you, who can sympathize. No one to help you decide when the furnace is too far gone to be repaired, no one to deal with the roofers, no one to fix the internet when it’s broken. It’s a lonely life, filled with a lot of stress. I really don’t know how she did it.

Every summer we’d take a two-week trip to Sauble Beach, a summer beach vacation spot where my aunt and uncle were full-time residents. My mom would pack up the car with food, clothes, and toys for everyone, load in her four daughters, and drive the 2 1/2 hours herself through farmland and back roads to her sister’s house. We always made it there even though a certain daughter was a Royal Bitch about having to leave her friends for two weeks. Man, if only I could go back in time and smack my teenage self around a little bit!

One time when we were on our way home from our Sauble Beach vacation, my mom’s car broke down. We were literally in the middle of nowhere — nothing around as far as we could see but farmland. This was long before the days of cell phones, so my mom had to leave the four of us in the car while she walked for a couple of kilometers to find a farmhouse. There, she called my grandfather for help and he arranged for a tow truck to come and find us. We waited two hours at the car for the truck to arrive.

I can’t remember how we got home (probably my grandfather came to pick us up), but I remember being broken down at the side of the road — and it’s a good memory. I was panicked at first, but somehow my mom managed to convince us that everything was going to be okay. I cannot imagine the stress she must have been feeling — having to handle everything herself, having to leave her kids alone in the car while she went for help, having to ask strangers for assistance (a big no-no in my mother’s life), having to keep four kids calm and entertained for two hours while we waited for the truck.

She managed it, though.

I remember the wait for the truck as being a lot of fun — playing games with my sisters, telling jokes, singing songs. I think if I were in the same place, I would have done a lot of swearing, and a bit of crying, and basically helped freak my kids out completely. My mom, though, she was a rock.

And she still is, if you ask me.

So Happy Mother’s Day to my rock — my mom.

Memories For Sale

On By LynnIn TurtleHead7 Comments

There’s a children’s clothing consignment store near us, and for the past year, as Little Miss Sunshine grows out of stuff, I’ve been dropping off baby clothes to sell.

I took a big bag of spring and summer stuff over in December.

Today I stopped by to drop off a couple extra summer items, and while I was there I had a bit of a look around to see what deals were to be had.

There was another lady there shopping for her baby girl. She was buying at least six or seven of our things.

My baby’s things.

I didn’t want to cause an awkward moment so I didn’t say anything to her…just watched in a stalker-like fashion. When I got up to the cash, she was in front of me in line, chatting with the cashier. “I love this little skirt, it’s so cute,” she was saying.

I used to love it too.

“And this dress is so adorable.”

I always thought so.

“And this onesie that says, ‘I’m new here,’ how cute is that?”

Really cute. I have pictures to prove it.

I’m happy the clothes are going to someone who is going to love them and use them. But I have to admit I got a little choked up. I’m ready to move on, really I am. I’m ready to have older kids.

But I am getting a little sad about my babies growing up.

A couple of weeks ago, Little Miss Sunshine magically learned how to lower the side of her crib. She never tried to climb out of it or anything, but still we thought it was best to swap her crib for the other one we own — we have two because Captain Jelly Belly and Gal Smiley were in cribs at the same time.

The one the Little Miss had been using is the crib that all our kids slept in, the one we first had when we were new, green parents, the one that Sir Monkeypants’ sister’s kids also slept in. I think of that one as “our” crib.

When Sir Monkeypants was taking apart the original crib to swap it for our second crib, he asked me if I’d like to take a photo of it, so we could maybe sell it online.

He made it up nice, with a baby blanket and a few stuffed animals in there.

I took a picture but I think it was blurry.

(Or else I was a little misty-eyed.)

Then we took it apart and put it away and I thought about how my babies are getting to be not-babies anymore and I miss them already.

Sentimentality Defined

On By LynnIn TurtleHead7 Comments

When my mother was in high school, she had to make a Christmas stocking out of felt as a project for Home Economics. It had a name at the top and cut out felt shapes decorating the front. My mom made hers for her younger brother, my Uncle Mark, so it had little boy things on it like a train and a baseball bat. My mom added a jingle bell to the train and thought she was a shoo-in for the top mark.

Then some other girl showed up who had decorated both sides, even though the assignment was only to decorate the front, and so she got an A, while the rest of the class only got a B. My mom is still really bitter about this. If that woman is ever walking down the street and she sees my mother approaching, she should cross to the other side.

Anyway, the story has a happy ending in that my mother went on to use the pattern and the idea to make Christmas stockings for everyone in her entire family. When her four daughters were born, she made each of us our own special stocking with our name on it.

I’m pretty sentimental about practically everything in my life, but these stockings are a step beyond. I’ve hung mine up every year since I was one, and it is a very big deal. Here’s my stocking, the same one I’ve had since I was a baby. It features a plate, spoon and fork (because I apparently loved to eat); a telephone, a bear, and a duck (all representing toys that I liked); and a Christmas tree (every stocking has some sort of holiday symbol on it).

When I met Sir Monkeypants many, many years ago, he once lamented to me that he never had anything with his name on it growing up, because he has an unusual name. The first year we were together, I asked my mom for the famous stocking pattern so I could make one for Sir Monkeypants. My mother was pretty reluctant to hand over the pattern — I think she didn’t really like the idea of me making one of our special family stockings for some Joe I’d only been dating for a few months. She bit her tongue and let me make one, though. When Sir Monkeypants and I got married, I think it was a huge relief to my mom that his Christmas stocking had finally been made legitimate.

Someday I will remake Sir Monkeypants’ stocking, because the stuff on his is so specific to first year university. It features a bike, a UFO, a pig, a present, and music notes.

I had a lot of fun making Sir Monkeypants’ stocking, so when my kids were born, I made theirs too. I think my mom would have liked to have done it, but I was very excited to be creating a family heirloom for my own children so I considered the torch passed. FameThrowa drew all the pictures for me and I turned them into patterns. I’m pretty FREAKIN’ PROUD of these stockings, let me tell you.

Here is the Captain’s. His pictures are of fish, a football, a snowman, a car, and his special sleep buddy, a blue monkey.

Here is Gal Smiley’s — both FameThrowa and myself consider the pony on hers to be the pinnacle of our stocking-making success. Other items include a soccer ball, a handbag and high-heeled shoes, a wreath, and her special sleep buddy, a yellow sheep.

And now, I unveil for the first time, Little Miss Sunshine’s — it’s not quite assembled yet, but if I get it done today, it’ll be ready just in time for our first Advent Activity tomorrow. The Little Miss’ has on it a snowflake, a bunny, a beach ball, a teapot, cup, and cupcake, and her special sleep buddy, a brown bear.

Let the holidays begin!

Happy Birthday, SocialButterfly

On By LynnIn TurtleHead5 Comments

My older sister, SocialButterfly, turns 40 years old today.

In honour of her birthday, I would like to give her the gift of an apology for all the crappy things I did to her as a kid.

I’m sorry I hit you in the head that time with a Fisher Price toy camera, and you had to get stitches.

I’m sorry about that one time I didn’t flush the toilet after filling it with hair from my hairbrush, and you teased me about it, and I gave you a HUGE lecture about how much it costs to flush a toilet and how we should not be doing it unnecessarily, and you were all chagrined, when really, you were right in the first place, and I should have flushed.

Remember when your Grade 8 yearbook came out, and there was a page where people had been invited to complete the sentence, “I love…”? And you had said, “…waking up to music.” And I thought that answer was totally lame, so just to prove a point, I turned on your radio at full volume at 7am on a Saturday morning, thus “waking” you up to “music”? Yeah, sorry about that one. I was a wee bit jackassy.

I’m really sorry about that one time when you were in Grade 4, and you were trying really hard to impress a cute guy in your class, so you told him you had a robot in your bedroom that cleaned it for you, and he came to me for validation, and I failed to back you up.

Sorry I just told the world about that robot thing.

I’m sorry that when we used to stay up after our official bedtime, pretending in the dark that we were twin babies named Tina and Bina, that I made you be Bina, even though you always wanted to be Tina.

I’m sorry that I have, in the past, suggested to you that Placido Domingo is uncool.

I’m very, very sorry that I was too self-involved during my university years to pay much attention to your kids, when they were wee babies and toddlers. I had no idea what I was missing out on; I completely did not get it when I called to talk to you and you would dare to talk all about your kids instead. I get it now. I sucked back then.

I apologize for that one time that Nana and Papa brought us back wallets as gifts from a trip to Florida, and I cried and cried because you got a pink one and I got a blue one but I WANTED THE PINK ONE, and you caved in and traded with me. You have a good heart. I was (am?) a whiny baby.

Sorry about all those times you wanted to socialize, but I just wanted to sit and read a book, and so totally rebuffed you. I must say though, you never seemed to take it personally. I suspect you have always understood me much better than I have understood you.

Now you’re 40, and I hope I’m a better sister to you now than I was then. Just to prove it, I’m going to call you on the phone right now and I vow to talk to you for a full fifteen minutes, which is terribly painful for me (not because it’s you, just because it’s the phone, and I HATE the phone), but it’ll make you happy.

Happy birthday, SocialButterfly!

Mix Master

On By LynnIn TurtleHead7 Comments

Lately I’ve been feeling like we just have too much stuff. When we were first married we had a 1000-square-foot 2-bedroom apartment, and we fit into it just fine. When we bought our first house — a mid-sized townhouse — it seemed too spacious to be believed. We had several closets that were empty. The unfinished basement had nothing but a few boxes and an old desk. Upstairs, the whole living/dining room was unfurnished, a giant room for just running around in or rolling around on the carpet. The space was incredible.

Now we’re in a four bedroom, two-and-a-half bath house and it feels like we’re starting to push the limit.

Sure, there are the kids, and they have lots and lots of kid-related things, from toys to clothes to books to sippy cups to diapers. We’re kind of using that stuff, though. I’d dearly love to cull the toys, in particular, but the kids always seem to notice. I’ll throw out one broken pair of sunglasses that they haven’t touched in six months, and the very next day it’ll be, “Where’s those pink sunglasses that I LOVE WITH ALL MY HEART?” So not a lot of kid stuff gets disposed of around here.

But on top of all the kid junk, I also feel like I personally have too much crap. Every drawer seems full of random detritus that doesn’t have a purpose. Stuff falls out of every cupboard when you open it, stuff that I crammed in there because there it didn’t have a good location. I have half-used hair care products that I don’t use at all anymore. I have kitchen appliances that only see the light of day once a year, at best. I have cloth napkins that were a wedding gift twelve years ago that I have never used. EVER.

So recently I decided that I’d try to take just one drawer or cupboard, once a week, and go through it. Anything I hadn’t used in a year was gone — to charity, if possible, to the garbage if not.

I decided to start with one particular kitchen cabinet. It’s Little Miss Sunshine’s favourite cabinet to open and empty (aside from the snack cabinet, which is now locked). It was full to overflowing with rarely-used items like napkins, fancy placemats, and the fondue pot. Just about the only thing in the cupboard I ever used was my stand mixer — I do a ton of baking around here, since it’s so hard to buy baked goods that are egg and milk free — and it was getting pretty hard to get the mixer in and out of the cupboard.

My mixer, by the way, is probably my favourite kitchen appliance. It isn’t the most useful or anything like that, but I just love the thing. My mother is big on baking and her mixmaster is also her favourite kitchen appliance. When she’d pull out the mixer, we’d know that cookies and cakes and other sources of yummy goodness were not far away. My mom is the one who bought me my mixer — she saw it on a good sale back when I was in university. At the time I thought I would never use it much, and it was so big and such a pain to move around in my student days. But now I love it, I use it all the time, and it reminds me of my mom, so it has a nice sentimental quality, too.

When my mom bought the mixer, she worried about the fact that it had glass bowls. She thought they might break someday. But the bowls are very heavy and strong and I’ve actually dropped them a few times in the past 15 years with nary a chip. Still, every time I got out my mixer I’d worry about the fact that I had to kind of edge it through a narrow pathway between baskets and coasters and fancy Christmas tablecloths, so I really wanted to clear out that cupboard first, to avoid any breaking dangers.

I dragged everything out of the cupboard and almost everything got rerouted to the charity pile; the fondue pot got sent to our downstairs pantry shelves and the Christmas tablecloths went in the cupboard above the fridge. Left behind were a few coasters and hot plates, some cookie tins, and my beloved mixer.

I must say, I feel really, really good about getting rid of stuff and about having a tidier kitchen.

So Sunday morning, I had to make some granola bars for Captain Jelly Belly’s school snacks this week, as well as chocolate chip cookies for Gal Smiley to bring to school the next day as her birthday treat for the class (apparently a tradition, which we learned about last year — when did that start?).

I opened up my nice tidy cupboard with lots and lots of space and easily took out my mixer.

The bowls slid out of my hand and both smashed into a thousand pieces on the floor.

IT FIGURES.

They haven’t made my model in years so I can’t get any replacement parts, and now the mixer is essentially useless. But you know what? I’m not actually all that upset about it. Ten years ago, I would have cried and demanded that Sir Monkeypants take me out THAT VERY SECOND to get a new one, one as close to exactly like the old one as possible. But it seems I’ve grown up. It’s just a thing. And my joy over having one cupboard, JUST ONE, that is neat and tidy and crap-free overshadows the loss.

I guess I’ve traded sentimentality for organization. I’ve come a long way, baby!