Generation Exhausted

Confession is good for the soul

A couple of weeks ago, I realized something rather unpleasant about myself, and determined to use my heightened awareness to change my behaviour.

I also thought "I'm going to blog about this!"

When I was mulling it over this morning, I thought again, "I'm going to blog about this!" and then I thought, "Did I already blog about this? What if I already blogged about this and I blog about it again? My blog readers would look at me like my kids look at me when I tell the same story for the second tenth time."

Oh come on, you know the look - a mixture of equal parts:

• Disgust at my inability to remember things
• Mild pity for the middle-aged woman who's losing her marbles (obviously she's nutty, what would you expect from someone who wears pants that ALMOST TOUCH HER BELLYBUTTON?)
• A bemused smile at having ended up with a mother who's going to be a major PITA when she's a senile senior, but that'll be that nice nursing home's problem, won't it?

Digresssion: One time, Middle came home and her sisters told her, "While you were out, we talked about it and took a vote. You get to take care of mom and dad when they're old."

ANYWAY.

I seriously don't recall sharing my shame here, and am too lazy to check my archives. So here is my dark and dirty secret, the thing I was dismayed to realize about my very own self:

I raise my voice when conversing with people for whom English is not their first language.

Isn't that horrible? I'm a child of a modern time, an urban dweller, raised and educated in a mosaic of cultures and languages. I have spent my whole life coming into contact with, and interacting with people who are not native English speakers. These are not people whose English skills are poor - these are educated, professional individuals who are doing a stellar job of communicating in a tongue that they've worked hard to master.

And I shout at them, just because they have an accent, or are a little slower to pick up on some idioms.

hangs head in shame

It's entirely unconscious, and with this new self-awareness, I'm working on it. I don't want to be a horrible person.

Overheard while selling Girl Guide cookies...

With the sellers being five-year-old girls.

It's my turn to ring the bell.

No, it's MY turn.

Sparkle, it's my turn, right?

****

Look, there's a snail. Ewww.

I see TWO snails.

I see FOUR snails!

Would someone knock on the door?

****

Sweetie, put the stick down.

Honey, it's not polite to knock on someone's door and then sit on their porch swing while you wait for an answer.

Garden gnomes are not toys.

****

Maybe they're sleeping. Maybe they're not home. Maybe they didn't hear the bell. Forget it, no one's home.

Maybe it takes them more than five seconds to get to the door.

****

We would like to sell you some cookies. The lady next door is allergic. And that house said they already had some. MY daddy bought five boxes. They cost five dollars a box, I mean four dollars.

****

Are we done yet? Can I carry the umbrella? Can I carry the cookies? Is it snack time now?

****

One wonders, in a mosaic culture such as ours, how those newer to the country view this phenomenon of dressing small children in matching t-shirts and sending them out to beg for cash. What a country!

And I won't even let them have a puppy

A couple of days ago, I caught sight of a headline about a stray lion. Before clicking over, I figured the animal had escaped from a zoo or something like that. You know, the kind of place you'd expect to find a lion in Canada.

But no. Boomer the lion, it seems, was someone's pet. Which just led me to wonder all sorts of things.

First of all, where would one FIND a lion to keep as a pet? I mean, kittens are a dime a dozen. Cheaper, even. Someone's always got kittens they need to find homes for.

Puppies are a little tougher. And when I was going through my "I want a garter snake" it took FOREVER to find one. Toads were plentiful in the ditch by the tracks, but those suckers were hard to catch. Harder still to convince mom that they needed a good home.

And what does one feed a pet lion? Annoying neighbourhood children?

What do you DO with a lion? Disney would have us believe that cubs would be content to hang out with warthogs and meerkats, singing Hakuna Matata all the live long day. I suspect the non-animated version would have other interests.

Even the garter snake was a little boring. Oh sure, I could wig people out by letting it crawl up my arm, and watching the shedding process was pretty cool, but beyond that...I mean, could you play fetch with a lion? Wouldn't you worry that instead of bringing back the frisbee it would bring back a puppy?

And maintenance...I can only imagine. Pooper scooping would take on a whole new dimension. You'd need, like, a snow shovel or bulldozer or something.

I really did have a garter snake when I was younger. It shed, and it grew, and eventually the aquarium I kept it in started to smell so bad my mom - who'd been a pretty good sport about the whole thing - made me let it go in the park. I think a lion would have been pushing my luck.

Life moves pretty fast...

It cannot possibly be early May already. I still have Christmas presents I haven't put away!

We seemed to have sailed from winter to almost-summer in a heartbeat. No jacket weather here; we've gone right from snowpants to capris with nary a pause. This is good, in a way. For some reason, the past few winters have seemed successively longer. It may be just me, and my moods, but there it is.

The dandelions outside my office window have turned into fluff, ready to scatter across the lawn and make more dandelions. At some point, I will have to think about getting out there and doing some yard work. And then once I'm done thinking about it, I'll actually have to do it.

Perhaps that's why I'm avoiding thinking about it.

This bodes well for the week to come

Lots to do in the next ten days before I can start packing for the great Florida journey. I woke up spontaneously at 6:30 this morning (I KNOW!) and couldn't go back to sleep, so up I got and to work I went. I also made eggs for the childrens before they went to school.

It's always interesting to watch how the kids react to this sort of thing. On the one hand, they're pleased - mornings are not my job around here, Dad does a great job. On the other hand, mornings are not my job, and while they're tucking away their hot breakfast you can tell it makes them nervous. Mommy's up, what's wrong? Mommy's cooking, what's REALLY wrong?

Keep 'em on their toes, that's what I always say. They can take it up with their therapist or Oprah at some point in the future.

So. I have cooked, I have worked, I have even washed the dishes. Now it's that awful lull before 9 when I'm waiting for the REST of the world to be at their desks and answering the phone.

And I fully anticipate that I will completely crash by noon.

Listen, and repeat

I've added Spanish lessons to my podcast list. I started with "Useful expressions." It should have been titled "Phrases for moms." This is a sampling of the expressions featured:

"Listen to me."

"Come here."

"Get outta here."

"Quickly."

"Wait for me."

After listening to the same podcast three times, so far all I've mastered is the instructor's "Listen and repeat" and "Very good."

But eventually, I'll be able to nag my kids in a whole 'nother language. Lifelong learning - it's a good thing.

There will be boys

It's 8 a.m. and the washing machine is already running. Aren't you so darn proud of me?

Linda is encountering a new phase of life with teenaged girls in the house, and my instinctive reaction is...

Hahahahahaha.

Sorry, as the mother of girls, I just couldn't resist. But truly, I sympathize. I feel your pain. Other than sympathy, however, I can offer little else. Because where there are teenaged girls, there are teenaged boys. It's a given, kind of like the fact that where there's a McDonalds, there'll be a Burger King not too far away. There's no escaping it.

The benefit of hindsight has taught me several things, and these bits of wisdom I offer to Linda and others. There will be boys you like, and boys you don't. There will be boys you like at first and then grow less fond of, and vice versa. There will be boys that leave you with a little niggling feeling at the back of your head that says "Alert!" and boys that will leave you wondering, "What the h**l is she thinking?" And just wait until the break-up that breaks YOUR heart as well as hers.

No specifics - my children would kill me. But trust me on this. The hardest part is knowing when to keep your mouth shut. I don't always do so good with that one.

In my most humble opinion, the presence of boys plural, at the age of 14, is better than the presence of one-boy-to-the-exclusion-of-all-others. Hell, that'd be my preference at 18, but we can't always get what we want. Today it's boys - tomorrow it's relationships. Now THAT's scary.

But if you've got girls who seem confident and secure in who they are and where they're going, regardless of how many boys are lurking around, then it's probably going to be okay. And realizing that Mommy's got a telephoto lens and knows how to use it may just keep them on their best behaviour.

Talk about performance anxiety

A comment from a reader led me to do a little digging, and lo and behold! The good folks over at Island Parent have this little ole blog listed in a sidebar in their current issue. Guess I better make sure there's something fresh for folks to read then, huh?

~~>gulp

So, May 1. Where did April go? It went where it usually goes...a couple of birthdays, a brief flirtation with housecleaning, pondering the dandelions. Racing like mad to get out the magazine. An article assignment. Laundry.

Oh, the laundry. It's quite possible that when God comes to call me home to the kingdom of heaven, I may be heard to say, "Wait! Just let me throw a load of whites in before I go!"

I fought the laundry, a brave and valiant fight, lo these many years, and I'm afraid that, this winter, the laundry finally won. It never ends. Never will end. And I'm afraid I've all but stopped trying.

Which isn't good. Children who can't find clean socks (no matching required) are ornery little creatures. Hubbies without clean underwear are not happy campers. And since I don't fold laundry (nor do dishes, nor cook meals), putting it in the washer and dryer is my job and I haven't been doing it very well. They are reasonably irritated.

May First Resolution: Win the laundry battle.

May First Resolution #2: Blog more.

The other evening I found myself wandering along a nature trail holding hands with a five-year-old. I was responsible for four little girls that evening, as part of the volunteer work I do. None of my kids were present - it was just me and somebody else's kids. My little buddy chatted away, telling me about her sisters, and what songs they liked to sing, and who had gotten sent to the quiet chair at school that day. The girls were all giggling and doing that half-run half-walk that kids that age tend to do when there's lots to see and hear and investigate.

And I realized that I'm really, really glad I went back to this volunteer position this year. I'd "retired" from it - and all other volunteer work - three or four years ago, and then last fall, partly as a way to reconnect with my own grown-up daughter, I got involved again.

It's not as time-consuming as I remember it, and in spite of the minor chaos it adds to my Wednesdays, it's been very...settling.

Almost everything I've ever read about having a balanced, happy life insists that volunteer work is a necessary component. There is something about giving back to your community - however you may define that community - that lightens the heart, quiets the mind and adds purpose to your days. I knew that. And now I know it even more. It wasn't until just recently that I realized how necessary it is for me to have something that isn't based on earning, or taking care of my family, or even taking care of me.

Slowly, but surely, I'm getting back in balance. And that's a good thing. It will leave me in a better frame of mind to win the Laundry Wars.