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Tag Archives: five year old

The True Hallmark of Mother’s Day: Taking What We Can Get

09 Monday May 2016

Posted by IfByYes in I'm Sure This Happens To Everyone..., Life and Love

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

beach, five year old, holidays, mother's day, one year old, parenthood, reality

Every year we are flooded by media about Mother’s Day from all of the retailers hoping to sell stuff to us. Radio ads urge husbands and sons to buy diamonds. Chocolates and flowers grace the most prominent areas of the grocery store, and everyone posts old photos of their mother or pictures of their own children with glowing social media boasts about love and being blessed and that sort of crap.


But under that, there is a current of disappointment. The people whose mothers have died and hurt to be reminded, the people whose mothers were just… really terrible at being a mother, and not really worthy of being honored, the people who wish they were mothers, or were ALMOST mothers, but aren’t…

…and the mothers of young children who face a day like any other – but with the added bitterness that comes from the contrast between their lives and the Mother’s Day commercials.


I am sure that some mothers out there got the Hallmark Card Mother’s Day – they got breakfast in bed and spent the day with guilt-free leisure while their usual jobs were done by others.

But I don’t know any of those mothers.

Every mother I spoke to – mothers of small children like I am – said that they had a good Mother’s Day… really… I mean, yeah, it was mostly the same as any other day, but there was something good about it.

A friend of mine got breakfast in bed. I mean, she had to buy the bacon and hashbrowns the day before, and she had to poke her husband and tell him to go make them for her, and he didn’t actually cook the hashbrowns, but she got bacon and eggs in bed and she figured that was good enough, really.

Another friend of mine had a nice barbecue at the house of a good friend of hers. And sure, her husband didn’t want to go at all and complained loudly about having to go – or maybe he didn’t go at all in the end, I don’t remember. Anyway, she went because she wanted to and she had a nice time, although she was annoyed about having to have a relationship fight in the process.

man-giving-gift

And as for me, well the baby slept until 9 am and PH dealt with Owl before that, so I got the best sleep in I have had in months, and then after the kids were in bed at night I sent PH to get me some pasta from my favourite restaurant, and some wine, and then I ate it at 9:30 pm while watching Mythbusters. So that was good.

During the day, I met up with another friend of mine (who had all three of her small children with her all day because her recently separated ex had decided to spend Mother’s Day cooking breakfast for other mothers at a Kinsman event and so was not available to help or do anything for the mother of his own kids) and we went to the beach.


The beach was nice, in a visiting-it-with-ungrateful-children sort of way. First they complained that they were cold. They refused to go near the water. They didn’t want to play in the sand. They wanted to go home and play video games.

But we, being experienced mothers, informed them that we didn’t give a tiny rat’s ass (not our actual words) how they felt, and we settled down on the sand anyway.


Fritter loved the beach. She ate sand and then when I carried her down to the water she happily splashed in the surf. She got covered in sand and thought it was fantastic.

The boys eventually warmed up to the beach. When they stopped whining about video games and claiming to be hungry despite having JUST eaten lunch, and when we put an end to their stick-based warfare, they finally started discovering crabs and sea shells and sand castles.


So our last hour there was quite peaceful, watching the kids dump sand into a puddle on a rock while Fritter followed them and tried to help, grabbing handfuls of sand in her tiny fists. We listened to the surf and smelled the sea air and looked at the mountains and enjoyed the sunshine and it was lovely.


At least until the boys started hitting each other with sticks again.

Of course, no Mother’s Day would be complete without a child asking the annual littany of  “why isn’t there a BOY’S day?” to which all of the present adults must answer in chorus, “EVERY DAY is BOY’S DAY.”

I’ll give this to Owl – he accepted the point of Mother’s Day very well. When I pointed out to my friend’s son that he got breakfast made for him every day, and that he got taken care of every day, he just argued that he couldn’t do those things yet. And of course I agreed but told him that that is why it is nice if, once a year, someone does those things in return for the mother who normally has to work at caring for other people and rarely for herself.

My friend’s son looked unconvinced but Owl took my side. Lord knows the poor kid hears me complain all the time about how much work I do looking after him.

In fact, he reiterated it today on the way to school. “Mother’s Day is when you get people to take care of you, instead of taking care of other people, right? But you did take care of me yesterday.”

And I told him that yes. While he is small, I don’t really get a day off. He can’t cook me breakfast, and he still needs me to make him dinner, and put him to bed. Daddy helped with some of it, so I got a break, but not the full Mother’s Day that you see in commercials. No woman with small children that I know got that. When the kids are this age, we take what we can get, because we know that Mother’s Day or not, they still need their diapers changed, and they still need to be entertained, and they still want dinner, and they don’t really give a damn how we feel about any of that.


But I do think that in a few years Owl will bring me breakfast in bed.

And in a few years, Fritter won’t need diapers changed.

And in a few years, things will be even better.

And I think that, considering the age of my kids, and life being what it is, yesterday was a darn good day.


 

Confessions of a Terrible Mother

02 Monday May 2016

Posted by IfByYes in From The Owlery, Life and Love, Me vs The Sad

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

anger, breakdowns, five year old, parenting, stress

Dear Owl,

I’m sorry. I’m sorry that I am not the mother you deserve. I’m sorry that I’m not the mother I thought I would be, or that I think I could be, if maybe things were a little different.

I’m sorry that when I’m stressed, I revert to old patterns probably set in my childhood – I talk to you as if you are an adult. I treat you as if you an adult – a belligerent, unreasonable, whiny little adult.

You are not an adult, you are a child. But when I am stressed, I don’t see you that way.

And so, today happened:

Continue reading →

Five

18 Friday Sep 2015

Posted by IfByYes in From The Owlery, Life and Love

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

first day of school, five year old, growing up

Owl turned five last Tuesday. It was also his first day of school.

 Sounds like a big day, doesn’t it?

Except that his first day of school was barely 30 minutes long, and he had both of his parents in the room the whole time because apparently these days kids are eased into kindergarten at pace that can only be called geological.

His “first day of school” involved going to school, entering a classroom that wouldn’t even be HIS classroom, meeting a teacher that wouldn’t even be HIS teacher,  and listening to a story while Perfect Husband and I found his name on a list and signed up for a time for his “meet and greet” with his teacher the next day – a 15 minute time slot which would constitute his ONLY time at school for the next TWO DAYS.

I spent the rest of the day spoiling Owl heavily. It was basically a “yes” day. Anything he wanted to do, we did.

That included a long walk, a game of SET Junior, a game of pretend-restaurant, and baking cupcakes while babywearing.


It was exhausting. But he had a good day.

His birthday party was Sunday.

Last year’s party had been simple and had worked well, so we planned to duplicate it. I emailed the lady in charge of our complex’s party room bookings and reserved the room. The morning of his party I went to pick up the keys from her mailbox, but they weren’t there. I rang her doorbell and she looked surprised to see me.

“I thought I put them in the mailbox,” she said as her three year old peered out from behind her.

“Nothing in there,” I said. She reached behind the door and produced the keys.

“Sorry about that,” she said, handing them over. I thanked her and headed over to the room so we could start setting up.

But the party room was already set up. Beautifully. There were pink table clothes laid out on the tables, chairs neatly set in front of paper plate table settings, a big HAPPY BIRTHDAY sign on the wall, and quotes from the Mad Hatter’s tea party scattered around, written on paper tea pots.

Huh.

“Why is that stuff there?” asked Owl.

“I… don’t know…” I said. After a quick consultation with PH, I decided to go back to the key-lady.

“Hi,” I said to her when she opened the door again. “This sounds weird, but do you know why the room is already set up for a little girl’s birthday?”

The lady covered her mouth. “Oh my God…” she pulled out her phone and started scrolling frantically. “Oh my GOD…. I double booked it… I told you it was available Sunday but I meant to say Saturday… Oh MY GOD…”

She picked up her phone and called the other set of people. “What time is your event?”

At the same time as ours, it turned out.

I said we could have the party outside and that their kids were welcome to come out and join us.

By the time all of this was worked out, there wasn’t much time for setting up decorations outside. Our earliest arriving guests ended up hanging balloons for us.

 But with all of that, the kids had fun. They bounced in the bouncy castle, they chased each other on the playground, and after the cake, we went in to the pool and I let them all swarm me in a slightly-frightening, Lord of the Flies kind of way.

So now I present to you – my five year old.

He is rambunctious, but kind.

He loves his baby sister.

He loves to learn new things, and while he likes for me to read Roald Dahl or Mrs Piggle Wiggle to him, or to listen to my made-up stories about Rude Ronnie, Fraidy Freddie and other kids with behaviour problems, I can already see a preference growing for non-fiction books.

He likes to have the facts straight. “But actually,” is a common phrase as he corrects the tiniest of semantic details.

He loves to watch his father and I play video games like Spore, Minecraft and Super Mario Galaxy.

He’s a gamer who loves board games and picks up new games with ease.

He loves connect the dots, mazes, and other sorts of puzzles.

He loves other people, and doesn’t always understand how to react when they don’t embrace his company with the same enthusiasm.

He doesn’t understand “wanting to be alone for a while”.

He loves to swim, and is slowly improving through repeated lessons.

He has trouble sitting still, and treats all objects including other people like pieces of climbing equipment.

He is brimming with confidence. “But actually, Mom, I’m already a pretty good reader. But actually, Mom, I can probably do a rocket-ship under the water for FIVE SECONDS.”

I hope he keeps his confidence, and his kindness. I hope the keeps loving science but doesn’t lose his enjoyment of a good imaginary story.

I hope I can enjoy him for who he is without pushing him too hard to be someone he is not.

I hope I can help him be the best Owl he can be.

I hope that I’m doing an okay job.

I hope that it’s going to get even better.

Because my baby is gone. He has transformed into a school age kid, and I can’t believe it.

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