The Importance of Moms and Birthdays....

So I’m officially 32. It happened overnight one night this week, rather unceremoniously; I awoke with a start to the sound of my phone ringing at 5:30 am. At first I thought it was my mother getting a head start on the happy birthday wishes. I groaned at the thought and thought to myself, "SERIOUSLY, Mom???"

It wasn’t her.

“Hello, Dr Boyd…sorry to wake you…” (That sentence NEVER ends well). Ah yes, I was on call. The same scenario repeated itself three more times before the appropriate wake up hour of 7am. Each time, having learned NOTHING from the previous phone calls, I grew increasingly disappointed by the sound of the nurse’s voice instead of my mothers on the other end of the line.

It wasn’t until after the 3^rd 6am phone calls that I noticed that my husband was not in bed with me. Nor had he been, come to think of it…all night. Alas, in the wee hours of my 32^nd year, my dear husband left me to get reacquainted with the toilet bowl.

Gastro. Again.

I went downstairs to lovingly console him, not MENTIONING the fact that I had started my birthday off with my two LEAST favourite things in the WORLD: vomit and 5:30am-on-call-phone-call-requests-for-tylenol. But hey, I thought, I was going to be a sympathetic wife.

I was not rewarded for my actions.

And so I climbed back into bed and waited the 10 minutes until my alarm went off or my mother called so I could start my (birth)day properly.

Maybe I’d have some better luck with my son?

Toby greeted me that morning by demanding to know where Daddy was. When he wasn’t quite satisfied with my answer he resorted to throwing his stuffed animals out of the crib and refusing to take his sleep sack off. He then followed this display of affection by asking, “Mommy shut the door!?!?"

And so I waited patiently for my son to allow me back into his room as the sounds of my husbands bowel movements drifted up the stairs.

Twenty minutes later Toby had finally conceded to getting out of his crib, into a clean diaper and into his highchair for breakfast. It was at this point, while he happily ate his cereal that I told him that it was my birthday. Toby loves birthdays. He is often randomly bursting into verses of “Happy birthday” and sometimes succumbs to the urge to wish me a happy birthday at the most inexplicable times. It’s quite endearing.

“Toby,” I tried, “Today is MY birthday - - can you say ‘Happy Birthday Mommy’?”

Toby smiled at me sweetly as cheerio milk drooled down the sides of his mouth. He put on his shy face and cocked his head to the side like he does before he utters endearing words that usually melt my heart and then said in a sudden burst of rage,

“TOBY NEEDS MORE CHEERIOS!!!!”

It was at this point that I called my mom. The clock ALMOST said 8 am so it wasn’t a totally unreasonable time to call. And as usual my mom pulled through; she wished me a happy birthday in a partially-concealed-just-woken-up-voice before I’d even said hello.

I only hope on Toby’s 32^nd birthday that he needs me as much as I still sometimes need my mom.

The Experiment is not over yet…

Just when I thought all hope of Toby playing with a doll was lost; he surprised me by rediscovering her. All of a sudden today, amid his play with Thomas the Tank Engine and has various other cars and trucks, he knelt down to get something out of his toy chest and discovered a BABY in there!

He scooped her up and promptly gave her a hug before poking his fingers in both of her eyes and pulling at her eyelashes. He then turned to me and matter of factly stated that she had a poopy bum and needed her diaper changed.

Off we went to the bedroom where Toby lovingly took her diaper off, wiped her bum REPEATEDLY and then generously applied his cream to her. Realizing that every thorough bum change is followed by nap time, he frantically looked around and asked, “Where is her CRIB, mommy?” I quickly converted a basked in his room into an appropriate crib as Toby took the baby and sat in his rocking chair to read her bedtime stories.

About 5 stories in he came across a page of food items and this reminded him that maybe the baby was hungry. Off to the kitchen we ran to get her a bedtime snack. Of course, the baby needed a high chair. So mommy dug up an extra high chair and baby had a seat while Toby fed her “kibble”. (The kid spends too much time with my mother’s dog…)

Then it really WAS the baby’s bedtime so back to the bedroom he took her, shutting the door behind him. Rob and I sat at the kitchen counter baffled, listening to the sounds of Toby rocking and telling his baby stories. I think it’s the first time in 2 years that we haven't had to be right beside him while he played. About 5 minutes later his bedroom door opened and his little head poked out, “BABY NEEDS MILK!!!” Of course. What were we thinking?

We passed him a bottle of milk and back he went into his bedroom, precariously holding onto both his doll AND his milk, to resume his baby’s bedtime routine.

And so my experiment WAS a success. I can now proudly say (when asked the question that started this whole process in the first place) that yes, in fact, my son DOES play with dolls.

The 9th Time's a Charm

We finally got it right. This being our 9th Valentine’s day together – it’s about time.

As I write this paragraph it baffles me how Rob and I ever managed to get together and then stay together. We are polar opposites. Where Rob is calm and measured, I am erratic, impulsive and excessive. And it shows…especially around holidays such as Valentines day. Whereas Rob doesn’t even like to acknowledge commercial holidays, I like to use these opportunities to shower him with excessiveness – food, drink, presents and mushy Hallmark cards.

After many years of me disappointing him by my unnecessary overabundance, and his disappointing me by his statement of inattentiveness, we’ve finally found our balance.

Instead of buying a card, Toby decorated a piece of red construction paper with stickers and erratic crayon marks. Instead of a gift, I made Rob his favourite: strawberry rhubarb pie. Except there was no rhubarb. And I forgot to mix the inside ingredients together. And then I undercooked it. So he was presented, rather unceremoniously, with a disastrous looking strawberry-like-cobbler and a rather ugly piece of paper.

But Rob genuinely appreciated my attempt at normalcy, “Wow, Lyss! THANKS! You have TOTALLY exceeded my expectations!!!”

(wait a minute…was that a SUPERLATIVE STATEMENT coming from my calm and measured husband??)

I was a bit taken aback by his overzealous appreciation. And slightly humbled to think how opposite my reaction would have been to a similar gift…but hey, it’s nice to know I finally got it right…

Things my father does for his grandson...

Yesterday, after hearing a few ominous grunts and screams from the basement, I went downstairs to find my father lying sprawled across the floor, his cane and slippers scattered across Toby’s playroom, while Toby stood at his side looking anxiously at the cupboard.

For a man who takes a full 5 minutes to lower himself into a sitting position in his armchair, the possibility of it being an intentional descent into this face down position seemed ludicrous. The last time I saw him lying on the floor, it was just after he’d fallen out of bed and fractured his clavicle.

I panicked.

After I realized that he was both moving AND breathing, I heaved a sigh of relief and exclaimed,

“Dad, what are you DOING on the FLOOR???”

The answer was logical (to my father.) Toby had been playing “hockey” and his ball had rolled under the cupboard and he had asked my father to get it for him. (That was the screaming part.) And my dad, ever falling under the spell of his first grandson, obliged (I assume that was the grunting part) while Toby, the agile-acrobatic-two-year-old watched over his shoulder and coached him on.

Pushing a few of my fathers limbs out of the way, I managed to sweep down and rescue the ball and gave Toby a little talking to about getting things himself and not imposing on his poor crippled octogenarian grandpa. And then I realized the much larger and somewhat tougher problem that still lay there; cane and legs sprawled, on the floor of Toby’s playroom.

“Dad….how are we going to get you up?”

It took 10 minutes, a bar stool, the cane, my mother, Toby’s chalkboard easel and lots of encouragement, but eventually we had my dad standing on his two feet again.

As he dusted himself off he smiled at his accomplishment he said victoriously,

“Come on, Toby! Lets play hockey!”

Mommy : The Football Expert

I have been forced to become an expert in something of which I know NOTHING: football. As the Superbowl approaches, Sunday afternoons in our house have become lazy days in front of the football game with Daddy intently watching and Toby eagerly questioning. I have NEVER been knowledgeable at football. Though I have tried on numerous occasions to focus on the game and the rules and all those numbers, it has just never really sunk in. The best I can do for my husband is to host a fantastic superbowl party every year so that (at least for the big events) he has someone to watch it with.

That being said, I don’t know WHY the kid keeps asking ME about the plays. But he does. As Rob quietly sips a beer, I am left to fend for myself and explain every minutia of the game to my inquisitive son. It is as if he goes into repeat mode with the question, “What HAPPNEING, Mommy?” to which I summon up the most confident and understandable-to-a-two-year-old-answers like “Uh….see that big guy? He’s saying 'On your mark get set GO' and then he’s going to throw the ball!” Or “Oops! He fell down!” or “He’s RUNNING and the other man is CHASING him.”

Rob just sits there and rolls his eyes. I am a LITTLE worried that he may get beaten up in grade school for thinking that the quarterback bends over to sing “Old MacDonald Had a Farm” before each play. But hey - -at least it makes football watching a bit more interesting for me!

After work relaxation....

My face has just been run over by a Megablocks truck.

Repeatedly.

While being sprayed by a raspberry-blowing-sound-effects-machine (also known as Toby’s lips).

My face wasn’t the only part of the formula 1 racetrack; the entire loop went around my ears, across my eyes, down my nose, over my lips and along my neck to the giant hills on my chest and then back up again. It’s a fairly short circuit, considering the less sensitive terrain that COULD have been covered.

You may think I’m an idiot to have let this happen over and over again. I don’t doubt that the dark tire marks and scratches that now call attention to my face may embarrass me at work tomorrow, but I’m not writing this post to complain. On the contrary, I’m writing it to gloat to all the other toddler-parents out there; tonight after work, for the first time in a long time, I got to lie on the couch and read the newspaper.