Shit Kids Learn When Daddy Goes Away

I recognize that a large number of my blog posts start with a dramatic lamentation about the fact that I’ve just come off of a period of…wait for it…SOLO PARENTING.  It’s not like it happens OFTEN and you would THINK that, after 9 years of being a mother, this would be a skill I could develop.  But regardless, each time it happens to me my perceived abilities in this area are often JOLTED into a grim reality of my abysmal lack of patience and ability to go it alone for long periods of time.  (Read : anything longer than 8 hours…)

This weekend Rob went away to Buffalo for a football game with some of his guy friends.  He doesn’t do this often so it is well deserved and I try my hardest to make MY part look easy so he doesn’t feel badly.  NO, I’m not trying to paint myself as a saint – it is done with complete self-interest: so that I can continue to go on 4 times the number of weekends away and not suffer from mom-guilt.

What REALLY is so difficult about spending 48 hours in the company of my 2

lovely kids, enjoying a movie and pizza night, and having a quiet evening after they go to bed with the remote control all to myself?

Well….as it turns out…it’s the talking.   The INCESSANT talking.  And the taxi service to and from out of town hockey games and play dates and shopping excursions to get snow pants.  And the talking.  And the feeding and cleaning and feeding and cleaning.  And the riddles.  And the fighting.  And the whining.  And the talking.  Oh, have I mentioned the talking?

Mia falls asleep mid sentence and wakes up at precisely 7:01 ready to continue right where she left off.  She tells me about her sleep and the sleep quality of her 50 beanie boos with whom she shares her bed and then she launches into her breakfast plans, her play plans for the day and general observations about the world.  Like the fact that it’s still a bit dark outside.  And that the snow hadn’t melted yet.  And when WOULD it melt?  And on that note….was I going to put chocolate chips in her pancakes?

You would think that Toby’s arrival at breakfast would provide me with a reprieve from the chatter.  But Toby, like his dear old mom, is not a morning person.  His occasional grunts in response to her questions only serve to fan the flame.  As such, her questions are repeated in exponentially rising decibels until either Toby or I explode a response. 

All of this before my 1^st cup of coffee.

Tonight, with the end of all of this looming in sight, we ventured out to Creemore  for Toby’s hockey game.   The talking and questions and fighting and talking continued for most of the drive until I was saved by a particularly upbeat country song.  For 3 blissful minutes we cranked the volume and sang, just the 3 of us, at the top of our lungs.  DRIVING ON THE BACKROADS I’m GONNA TAKE IT SLOW JUST AS FAST AS I CAN.  Rob NEVER likes us to play the music that loud.  Things were turning around.

After the game our dear dear friends who clearly observed my parenting fatigue offered to come to dinner with us all afterwards.  They even pretended not to care that we were eating at 4:30.  They just went with it.  #truefriendship

We had a lovely buffet dinner at the Sovereign and then headed home in the dark with only ONE MORE HOUR to go before bedtime.

On the way home, just as Mia’s voice box was starting to fatigue, Toby got his chatter on.  He asked us some riddles. 

“I have a mouth but don’t speak.  I have a bank but no money.  What am I?”

Mia, with her usual display of equal parts confidence and blind enthusiasm, shouted out the answer first, “That’s EASY Toby.  It’s a GIRAFFE.”

????

(It was actually a river)

She then PROUDLY announced that she had finished the candy from dinner.  It tasted like black licorice and Toby and I had spit ours out in disgust about 2 seconds into it.  But Mia is not one to pass up on a candy. 

“Good perseverance, Mia” I said sarcastically.

Toby asked what perseverance was.  I gave a brief definition and Mia, not at all catching onto my sarcasm and not wanting to miss an opportunity to show off her aptitude at persevering, further clarified,

 “See, Toby? It’s like when you eat a candy and don’t like it but you just KEEP AT IT and FINISH the candy anyways.  THAT’s Perseverance.”

I don’t think she got the fact that, for the second time in 5 minutes we were laughing AT her.

Toby moved his line of questioning to general LIFE questions, as he sometimes does when he is enjoying having all of us together.  He asked us where we would each like to live if we didn’t live in Canada.  I told him I’d like to live in France. 

Mia’s response?’

“France.  Because I just want to live wherever Mom is.”

After a long weekend I felt my heart swell with love…

Just before we pulled into the driveway our country song came back on and we finished our drive, and the long weekend of togetherness, with one last loud sing song.

Don’t worry.  This isn’t a braggy blog post.  I didn’t ACTUALLY kill it as a mom.

As we sat there in the driveway singing our hearts out to the last verse, I suddenly, for the first time, stopped an listened to the words… 

I will conclude with the lyrics to the song that I so energetically instilled on my children this weekend…and will leave you with the image of Rob returning home tomorrow to the sweet sounds of their chatter…and SINGING OF THIS SONG….

Got a girl from the Southside
Got braids in her hair
First time I seen her walk by
Man I 'Bout fell up out my chair

Had to get her number
Took me like 6 weeks
Now me and her go way back
Like Cadillac seats

Body like a back road
Could drive it with my eyes closed
I know every curve like the back of my hand
Doin' fifteen in a thirty
I ain't in no hurry
I'm a take it slow just as fast as I can

The way she fit in them blue jeans
She don't need no belt
But I can turn 'em inside out
I don't need no help

Got hips like honey
So thick and so sweet
Ain't no curves like hers
On them downtown streets

Body like a back road
Could drive it with my eyes closed
I know every curve like the back of my hand
Doin' fifteen in a thirty
I ain't in no hurry
I'm a take it slow just as fast as I can

We're out here in the boondocks
With the breeze and the birds
Tangled up in the tall grass
With my lips on herss

On a highway to Heaven
Headed south of her smile
Get there when we get there
Every inch is a mile

Body like a back road
Could drive it with my eyes closed
I know every curve like the back of my hand
Doin' fifteen in a thirty
I ain't in no hurry
I'm a take it slow just as fast as I can

I'm take it slow just as fast I can

(Body like a back road
Could drive it with my eyes closed
I know every curve like the back of my hand)

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