The End of an Era

Today we got rid of Mia’s crib.  It wasn’t just your typical landmark transition from baby to toddler bed; this transition marked the end of an era for our family.

I bought this crib 7 years ago, piggy backing on the extensive research that Care put into cribs (for both of us newly pregnant moms at the time) and then hijacked a ride down to North York with her in her mom’s Toyota Highlander (the biggest, most extravagant care we could conceive of at the time) to pick them up.

We had a great day, driving to the random warehouse just north of Toronto.  We complained about pregnancy, contemplated the future and daydreamed about our babies together while getting lost repeatedly in the confusing world of North York.  It was absurdly funny; the kind of laid-back day I so naively took for granted back then. 

I remember picking out a pale oak coloured crib to match my pale pine coloured house at the time.  If ONLY I had known how much I would LOATHE light coloured wood by the time I was at the end of maternity leave I would have gone with the dark one.  I also remember passing up in the little kit they sold that converted the crib to a “day bed” for the child when they were old enough to transition to a real bed.

I wasn’t being cheap: I was being entirely practical.  My brain was having a hard enough time rationalizing the fact that I would soon need a CRIB for an actual BABY, let alone the fact that one day THIS baby and ALL of their potential siblings (and WHO KNEW how many that would be!)  would be big enough to no longer even NEED a crib.  It was kind of like trying to understand Einstein’s theory of relativity: it was mind-boggling.

“No, “ I said politely to the salesman, “I don’t think I will take the transition kit today…”

And now here we are, LIGHT YEARS later, after all of time and life has warped shape and some how transitioned itself (WITHOUT the transition kit) to the other side of infinity.

I made it.

WE made it.

I find myself now with a 6 year old and a 3 year old whom I couldn’t even imagine life without.  And my husband, who I have been to the moon and back with.  Whom I have weathered two labours, 2 maternity and 2 paternity leaves with.  With whom I lived in that little ICU room at sick kids for the two most grueling weeks of our lives.  My husband, whom I love exponentially more and in hundreds of different ways than I did that day way back when I naively embarked on this journey and bought us the crib.

I felt it was only fitting that it was with him that I dismantled this meaningful crib.   And as Rob and I started to take the crib apart he suddenly stopped, looked at me with knowing intensity and then asked the question that only my husband would think to ask in this great moment of transition and sadness and triumph,

“Uh..Lyss…do you remember if you screwed together the front of the crib or the sides of the crib first?  I think it is important to know which order it needs to be unassembled and then reassembled in…”

No, I did NOT remember.

“SERIOUSLY?” he answered. “You have a TERRIBLE memory.”

HOW had I forgotten (in the 7 years that has passed) such a VITAL piece of information?  Perhaps it was because I was deep in the depths of a pregnancy fog that has still not entirely lifted…perhaps because I was whistling and daydreaming to myself while I put the crib together…or maybe, hey, maybe I don’t REALLY pay attention to those sorts of details from SEVEN YEARS AGO.

I offered up some useful hints and practical suggestions, (none of which made up for the fact that I had carelessly disposed of more useful pieces of information) but somehow we managed (miraculously!) to get the crib apart and into the trailer.  And we’re still married.

There is a new little baby in the world that is now enjoying the comfort of a (very pale and slightly ugly) oak wood crib.  There is a little 3 year old who cries herself to sleep every night in the scary world of her new big girl bed.  And there’s a now grown up little girl who lies there at night, marveling at how quickly time has gone by and hoping it slows down a bit so she can cherish these moments, and all the transitions and joys that come with being a mom…

Toby, the crib's original member, on his first night at home...

Mia, slightly less neurotically swaddled, enjoying the crib in her first week

Thunder storm negotiations

Mia hates thunderstorms.  Ever since she was rudely awoken from her beauty rest one night, she has had an intense fear and hatred of them.  When one is lurking, or even mentioned on the radio, she seizes up with terror and sets about on a stream of frantic questions.

Tonight at dinner the sky was ominous.  It wasn’t raining yet but every now and then off in the distance  you could hear the faint sounds of rumbling thunder.  I talked loudly over the first few rumbles but on the third one she froze dead in her tracks.  Her head and torso paralyzed with fear, it was only her eyes that were able to swivel frantically towards me; she looked like a crazy haired chamelion.

“Uh….WHAT was THAT??” she asked, dropping her fork.

It was SO TEMPTING to ease her fears with a little white lie.  It would have made the rest of dinner and our evening SO much smoother if only we could have faked our way out of the impending storm.  One look at the darkening sky told me my idea was futile.

“I think it was thunder Mia…off in the distance…” (of course)

Mia’s first protective instinct is completely irrational and TOTALLY out of character for her (or ANY 3 year old for that matter…)

“I think it’s bedtime.” She said resolutely, still without moving her head or body at all.

It was 5 o’clock.

I went on to reassure her that it was NOT yet bedtime, that the room was dark because of the clouds and that we were all safe in the house where thunder and lightening couldn’t hurt us.

The idea of going straight to bed as soon as the storm arises is actually quite irrational seeing as the FIRST thing she does during a midnight storm is to LEAVE her bed (or crib) and come and find us before staunchly REFUSING to have ANYTHING more to do with her room.  I don’t get much sleep during thunderstorms…

Well…if she wasn’t allowed to GO to bed to AVOID the storm, her next step was to prepare herself.

“Tonight, Mommy, if there’s thunder I’m going to just come and find you in your bed.”

I want to be the kind of mom that is attentive to my children’s needs.  I love that she finds comfort in me and that I am able to ease her middle of the night fears, but this was my one and ONLY chance to argue my point in order to get myself a full night’s sleep.

“Or you could just stay in YOUR bed, Mia,” I began, “Because YOU know the thunder won’t hurt you but all of your babies don’t know that yet and they may want you to stay with them in your crib and tell them that it’s OK and that the thunder won’t hurt them.”

With another sideways glance of a chamelion, my wise 3 year old made it CLEAR to me that she could see through my feeble attempt at sleep preservation and sloughed my suggestion off without missing a beat.

“NO, my babies don’t need me.  They have ANOTHER mommy in the crib who will do that for them.”

Oh REALLY…and WHO was this other mommy?  I called her bluff.

“BIG Mommy.”

I was about to ask another question about Big Mommy when Mia hastily got down off her stool and ran to her bedroom.  She was gone a few minutes (presumably rearranging things?  Finding said ‘Big Mommy’?) and then rushed back to the dinner table after definitively SHUTTING her bedroom door behind her.

“Yup!” she said resolutely, “I had a talk with them.  NO ONE in my crib is scared of the thunder and BIG MOMMY is in there with them in case they get scared.”

Well, that’s one thing I can cross off of my worry list.

“So if the thunder comes tonight I will come and find you, RIGHT, Mommy?”

“Right, Mia.”

Sometimes it feels good to be needed.

Shania's Greatest Hits

Today was a rainy day in PEI.  We were all cooped up in the cottage with ‘nothing to do’ which quickly turned into multiple episodes of Franklin, a jigsaw puzzle trifecta, play forts in the bunk beds, rounds of mastermind and battleships, reading the newspaper on the ipad (s) and a Henry spa.

That killed an hour.

Slowly we adjusted our “on the go” vacation speed to slow and lazy rainy day speed and settled into the rhythm of jigsaw puzzles.  We had 3 on the go – a 20-piece Dora one, a 100 piece Harry Potter one and a 1000 piece PEI landscape one.  Can you GUESS who was doing which one?

While all this was going on, Rob decided some music was in order and turned on the CD player to the one of 5 CDs they had left for us at the cottage: Shania Twain’s Greatest Hits.

Some of you may groan at the idea of country music; some of you may launch into song at mere thought of one of her catchy tunes; some of you may smile at our patriotism.  But I bet none of you get that gut wrenching nauseous feeling as the memories of the Sick Kids ICU comes flooding back.

Shania, as some of you might remember, was what we listened to, ad nauseum, in Toby’s ICU room.  All because one day, for one brief second, our ventilated, unconscious and perilously sick 10 month old tapped his foot to the tune of “Man I feel like a Woman”.  It was the first sign of life we had seen from him in days.  It was the first glimmer of hope we had received in our long and arduous journey.  It was a sign we all desperately clung to until something more tangible was available.

We played song after song hoping that Shania’s voice - whatever it was he liked enough to tap his little 10-month-old toe to – would continue to lift him and us out of the dark hole we were in.

At the time I found the music uplifting.  I remember people writing to me on our care page about listening to Shania at home and thinking of us; I remember Natalie typing out the words to “From this Moment” and noting how applicable it was.  In addition to my hopeful visions of getting Toby off of life support, taking him home, watching him recover enough to eventually take his first steps and then grow up healthy and unharmed from his arduous stay, I also envisioned myself writing to Shania and thanking her for her inspirational and uplifting music.  I imagined her writing back to us and giving us free tickets to a show that I would take a healthy, much older version of Toby to before dragging him back stage to thank her personally for writing a song that inspired him to tap his little toe and offer his desperate mom, dad and grandma that small glimmer of hope we so desperately needed that day.

We did get home.  He did recover.  And he did take his first few steps shortly thereafter, but not to the beat of any Shania Twain.  Removed from the desperation of our Sick Kids ICU room, I suddenly wanted nothing more to do with anything we had just been though.  I just wanted normal life.  I didn’t need reminders.  Every Shania song to me was nothing but a souvenir of being in a place I did not want to remember.

Have you ever been in a place that was so abysmal that it caused you to reflect longingly on the past and frantically on the future, impatient for it to come and rescue you from your current situation? 

Have you ever been in a place where your ONLY solace was a Shania Twain CD?

It’s not that I haven’t heard her since.  Every now and then a familiar one comes on the radio and before I get too far into my dark fantasy I find myself switching the station.  It’s automatic.  I’m like my own emotion regulating DJ.  It’s just never a ‘convenient time’ to be driving around in my own private therapy session.  It’s for this reason I put her greatest Hits CD in the back of our CD console one day.  Life has moved on. 

And then today, on some rainy day in a cottage on the coast of PEI, we come face to face again as my husband naively and cheerfully puts her CD in the player and cranks up the volume.

“OH…” I say as my stomach flops upside down and my hand reaches, from the other side of the cottage, for the imaginary ‘off button’.  “This CD…”

Rob looked at me puzzled.    I looked at him with equal measures of puzzled amazement.  Oh the bliss of a bad memory.

I reminded him of it and he gave an “Aha!  Oh, yes THAT!” that you would give to being reminded of a funny story from someone’s wedding.

And so we listened to Shania.

At first, I paid close attention to every word and was reminded of something different each time a different song came on.

But here’s what I learned from taking a walk down memory lane today in the safe place of serene PEI in the presence of the 3 (fantastically healthy) people that I love the most:

1.  It is much, MUCH more normal to dance to “Man I feel like a woman” with your daughter than your son.

2.  In hindsight, it seems kinds of creepy that I DID dance to “Man I feel like a woman” with my 10-month-old son.  Why did no one point that out to me?

3.  Not EVERY song on that CD is tarnished by a memory.  In fact, MOST of the CD isn’t all that applicable to where we were.  Like, “Whose bed do your boots lie under?? “ What could I have POSSIBLY found to relate to with that one??? And “You’re invited to a party- a party for two.”  That was CLEARLY not about an ICU room party. 

4.  Time heals all wounds.

5.  Despite all the good AND the bad associated with it, Shania Twain is a pretty amazing Canadian artist.

6.  A crystal ball might have been nice.  If only I could have seen us all dancing together while the rain poured down around us.  Our family of four.  Our health.  Our happiness. Our love.  I don’t need to see any further into the future, but I could have done with a brief glimpse of today during those dark days at Sick Kids.

I guess that’s what faith is.

I close with the words to the most poignant of her songs that still send a shiver up my spine.  I suppose it’s ideally suited to a wedding, but I decided today that I’d take this song with me – no matter how much time passes, this will always be the song that symbolizes my bond and promise to my son.  But I’ll leave the rest of them behind.  Especially “Man I feel like a woman”  -- someone else can have that as a “theme song.” 

From this moment

Life has begun

From this moment you are the one

  Right beside you is where I belong…. from this moment on.

 From this moment, I have been blessed.

 I live only for your happiness

And for your love I’d give my last breath

 From this moment on…

Our PEI Reprieve

This summer we took our family trip to PEI.

We decided on some place simple that didn’t involve a prolonged flight or significant time change.  What we wanted was a real chance to relax.  What we needed was some time to just simply be together as a family.

The build up to these short 8 days has been immense.  While all of the chaos of house buying, year ending, moving, summer planning and nanny hiring went on around us, we went to the mere prospect of this trip as our happy place.  

Two weeks - we’d remind ourselves.  Two weeks and we will step away from this all and just be.

Whenever I found myself anxious or stressed at work I would advance my day planner ahead a few weeks to the yellow blocked out weeks of our vacation and take a deep breath.

Soon.

And now here we are.

As it often is at life, when we place all of our expectations into one singular outcome, the results are often disappointing.  As we launched off into the air in our small Air Canada Express airplane I prepared myself for this.  I said a silent reminder to myself to accept whatever the PEI trip and experience became for what it was.  But I also hoped with all my might that it would offer us the reprieve we so badly needed.

I sit here tonight on the deck of our modest cottage, sipping a glass of red wine, breathing deeply the salty sea air and I am moved to write.

PEI has not disappointed.  It has not only granted me the serenity I imagined, but it has unearthed in all of us an innate sense of belonging and recognition we didn’t even know existed.

                                                                               
                             It is majestic in its simplistic and rugged beauty. The lifestyle is simple. The people are kind.  The food is fresh.   The land is uncrowded and the houses unpretentious.   The music is joyous, and the air…you can smell the wholesomeness of the sea salt as easily as you can see its crazy effects on my curly hair.

At first I just imagined this to by my happy place, but soon realized that the feeling was mutual.  This omnipresent contentment was solidified on a drive out to Malpeque Bay earlier this week.  We were driving in silence with all the windows open and the cool air blowing our thoughts around in our heads when Toby’s singular statement summarized perfectly what we were all thinking.

“I like it here…” he said to all of us and none of us at the same time, “It’s even better than Disney world.”

I pressed him a bit on this out of curiosity.  WHAT exactly was better?  We had no organized day trips – just lounging days at the beach. There weren’t any fancy restaurants – just last minute jaunts to the fish market or the lobster suppers we attended.  We hardly watched TV but opted for late night swims or one of the millions of board games that were at the cottage.  (My kids even learned how to play twister!)

“Well…” my 6 year old tried to put to words exactly what I had been thinking all week, “There’s nothing I can think of…you just don’t have to be DOING anything here to have fun.  It just is."

Tonight when I tucked him into bed I asked him what he loved most about the trip.  His answer was one long run on sentence.  I concluded with a question about what he most looked forward to about going home.

He stared at me blankly. 

“I just kind of wish we lived here” was all he came up with.

Ironically, this is the very same conversation Rob and I had had the night before.

I reminded Toby of the million and one things we love about Collingwood, family, and friends back home and it wasn’t long before he was imagining play dates and anticipating how he was going to summarize his trip for his grandparents.

There’s something about this land that sneaks into your soul.  Or maybe it has been hidden inside of us this whole time.  Either way, I know we are all coming back from our excursion a little more connected in a way none of us can put into words.  We are also a little blonder, a little browner, a little quieter and a little calmer.   And a little more inspired to translate the quiet peacefulness of vacation and PEI life into our own life when we return.

Fingers crossed….

    I found this shell on our last day - must be a sign :)

A Trip to IKEA

A new house begs one sure thing: a trip to IKEA.

Living in Collingwood, having 2 children AND a full time job makes this a difficult task that requires a lot of fore planning.  I suppose the disaster that ensued is exactly my punishment for naively embarking on a spontaneous trip.  I accept this in hindsight.

We were all down in Toronto for an afternoon.  Mia was going for her nap, my mom was at a conference, Rob was embarking on some sort of TV sports-watching marathon and Toby and my dad were bored.  The LOGICAL conclusion?  Take these two to IKEA to buy the 9000 things we need for the new house.

The trip started off perfectly; it was MORE than perfect in fact.  BOTH the boys were ECSTATIC to go on an outing (especially to a place that offers soft serve ice cream at the exit) and we listened to a show tunes CD on the way there, singing our hearts out in the beautiful summer afternoon.  We got there and miraculously found a very close parking spot and entered the building to be greeted not only by a WHEELCHAIR but also a kids play area.  I signed Toby in and was handed a buzzer in case he needed us and was then set free into IKEA.

Mistake number 1:  I handed my dad the buzzer.

“What’s this for?” he asked crankily

“It’s so that if Toby needs us they can buzz us.”

“WHERE’S TOBY!?!?!?” he remembered in a fit of panic,

“He’s at the kids play area.  He’s fine.  Now lets go.”

I pushed my dad through the ingenious configuration that is IKEA as he gripped the buzzer as if his life depended on it. 

Mistake Number 2: Taking someone with dementia through a maze of room replications

“Where ARE we?” he asked as we turned each corner. “And WHERE is TOBY?” he would escalate…his grip grew tighter on the precious buzzer every time I explained it to him

We went through mazes of kitchen apparel, bedroom dressers and beds and bedside tables, desks, chairs, dining room sets and then finally the dishes, rugs and random paraphernalia.  I needed it all.  As each room enfolded, my inspiration mounted and I found more and more hidden gems of things I suddenly DESPREATELY needed.  I would hand my dad the things he could carry.  (I would not say no to a $24 wok!)  And the rest I took a picture of so I could pick it up at the very end. 

I was, in fact, too excited by my potential purchases to notice the chagrin that was escalating on my dad’s anxious face.

JUST when we got to the grand moment when we exited the maze and entered the STORAGE ROOM that housed all the amazing purchases I had been saving up this whole time, I realized I needed to get myself a different kind of cart.  One that required pushing.   

I looked down at my dad in his wheelchair who was now desperately gripping a $24 wok, a set of dishes, his cane and the precious buzzer.  He was at his limits.

Literally and figuratively, apparently.

“LYSSIE.  What in GODS NAME are you DOING!?!?!?” he asked as I pushed him over to the place you get the flat bed trolleys.

“Um….WELL…I was going to buy a few bedside tables…a desk…a couple of dressers…and maybe some chairs?”

My dad, apparently had had enough.   There was NO WAY he was willing to spend another SECOND shopping.  There was ALSO no was he was letting me forego the grip on his wheelchair for something as useful as the buggy.

I looked from my exasperated and anxious father to the rows and rows of neatly boxed furniture I had so recently decided I could not live without. 

“OK, Dad,” I said, “You’re right, I can’t push you AND the other buggy.” 

I thought initially I’d just buy my $24 wok, dishes and a few other things that I’d gathered along the way, leave my dad with an ice cream cone, and come back for the rest. 

But then we hit the check out line.

My father was a wreck.

WHO were all these people and WHY had we chosen the SLOWEST line.  And WHO was behind us and WHY were they trying to BUD ahead of us???

I grinned sheepishly at the poor innocent people behind us (who were not in ANY way trying to jump the line) and then kindly declined the gracious offer from the people ahead of us to go in front. 

JUST when I thought we had reached our lowest moment…the buzzer went off.

“TOBY!!!  It's TOBY!!! He exclaimed “He NEEDS US!! We have to LEAVE!!!”

(Again, the people in front of us kindly reiterated their offer to go ahead.)

The problem was the there were about 5 other people in front of them OR an entire maze of a store to navigate in reverse to get to the kids play area.  I had no choice but to either leave my $24 wok and other paraphernalia and take my dad to get Toby or abandon my helpless father at the checkout line to quickly grab my son.

The answer was a no brainer.

Don’t judge me.  I just really wanted that wok.

And besides, I left him with the kind couple in front of us, promising profusely to return for him AS SOON as I’d collected my son FROM THE OTHER END OF THE STORE in JUST a jiffy.

It was the FASTEST anyone has EVER ran through the corridors of IKEA. It was the QUICKEST Toby has EVER put his shoes on.  The people at the day care checkout must have thought I was secretly pregnant, in labour, and about to push;  I was back so fast I doubted that the couple in front of me would have even noticed.

Well…it turns out they did, as did everyone else in IKEA who was remotely close to the check out counter area that afternoon.

As I rounded the corner to the checkout area, a very helpful couple I had never before seen in my life reassured me that my dad was JUST FINE and had been moved to the far end of the cashiers area.  As I walked down I saw dozens of customers heave huge sighs of relief.

And there he was.  He had gotten himself OUT of line, turned around and was loudly banging his can on the floor and then the shelf in front of himself.

(I am happy to report that he was still holding onto the $24 Wok)

“Hey, Dad!” I said as cheerfully and nonchalantly as I could muster. “Ready to check out now?”

“Harumph…” he said in reply. “I WANT TO GET OUT OF HERE.”

This is when Toby brilliantly leaned in, “Don’t you want to get an ice cream cone, Papa?”

My dad thought about this for a split second but his anger was unwavering.

“No.  I do NOT. WANT. AN. ICE CREAM CONE.”

We were both shocked.

But we stood in line anyways and bought the damn wok.

It was then that I noticed that the ice cream cone place was right at the exit of the store.  This could either work in my favour (how long does a man with dementia remember his solemn promise NOT to get an ice cream cone?) or work against me (how gracious CAN any 6 year old be about not getting said promised ice cream cone?)  I was dangerously close to having both an 87 year old and a 6 year old temper tantruming at the same time so I promised them both that as SOON as we got the HELL out of this store we would FIND an ice cream place.

And yes, those were my exact  words.

We made it past the ice cream place and to the exit doors and were JUST about through when the LOUD alarms that started sounding caused both of my boys to throw their arms up in the air and over their ears.

My wok fell on the floor.

Of COURSE it was us that had set the alarm off.  Why wouldn’t it be?  What more could happen in one simple trip to IKEA?

The rest of the story goes like this:

We were escorted back into IKEA, screaming senior and 6 year old in tow, reprimanded for having taken an IKEA wheelchair out of the store, escorted to the exit closest to our car and kindly, yet firmly, sent on our way.

Not 5 minutes later I had them both seat belted into the car and we were on our way.   A few minutes down the road I had both of them belting out “The Sun will come out Tomorrow” and all was right again in their world.

“Well,” my dad said smiling, “that was fun.  Did you get what you wanted, Lyssie?”

“Not exactly, Dad” I answered honestly, “But I’ll get it next time.  How about going for an ice cream, now?”

“Oh, YES, “ He answered, “That sounds LOVELY.”

My dad and Toby, enjoying an ice cream cone together at Baskin and Robins...just down the road from the dreaded IKEA