52 Weeks

The very last night of last year, I fell asleep on my son's bed reading stories to him while he nodded off himself. It was 10:00 p.m. perhaps. 10:30 at the latest. And when I awoke, the clock read 12:05. I kissed his brow and wished him a happy 2012 and then crawled into my own bed and began to dream.

New Year's Eve has felt, for many years now, more than a tad anti-climactic after what is my favourite, festive Yuletide "hollyday" season. And it's been a couple of years at least since I even thought about anything concrete for a resolution never mind more than one. Life has felt too fast and too full and certainly, some days, too exhausting to worry about any such list.

This year began the same way for me. But one thing I have resolved for myself is to commit to a self-portrait photography project. I have started and failed at completing two 365-day self-portrait projects on flickr (projects other flickr friends of mine were able to successfully complete). Inevitably single-parenting left me taking last-minute-of-the-day-in-front-of-the-bathroom-mirror shots just to get my submission in for the day. Plus, I was fairly bored with the subject matter: my tired, food-on-the-shirt, unwashed hair, bags-under-the-eyes single mommy face. My days were just too full for me to have the enthusiasm to commit, never mind the energy.

Curious as George...

This year, I'm taking it easy on myself. Along with two other photography projects I plan, I will now attempt a 52-week self-portrait project. As a single mom, I think I can manage at least one photo once a week and have the energy to be a tad more creative than a daily late-night-shot-in-the-mirror before flopping into bed.

Already, I failed to take my first shot on New Year's weekend. Not a great start, so I've cheated and used a selfie I shot of Sonshine and I Christmas morning as my first submission for the project. It's a magical moment for us both and captures us reading one of my Christmas gifts to him: Curious George in the Snow.

To make up for the bad start, I felt the need to be more creative, make more of a statement with my second submission. I was thinking about this coming year and how I'd like to get back in touch with the other parts of myself that perhaps have been sorely neglected since becoming a single parent. My first thought was my femininity. For  almost 3 years, I have been wearing jeans and cords and tshirts and fleece and stretchy yoga wear and keens or mukluks. Generally, I am almost always without makeup. Time is just a luxury for this kind of attention. Inevitably, the moments I take to glimpse myself in a mirror are brief (and for a reason). I shy away from them. Who wants to constantly witness food-splattered clothing or scratches on skin etched by tiny fingernails or tousled, bed-head hair? Not me!

Yesterday, while he napped. I put on a dress and heels for my second shoot for the project. And let me tell you, it felt great to be creative and feel pretty and to have a goal, an actual statement to make with the project: that aside from being a mommy 24/7, I'd like to get in touch with my feminine side, the woman I am, not just the mother. And to allow myself moments to rediscover those many other sides to myself that have been relinquished for some time now. Sides I am missing.

Best foot forward for 2012...

The wheels are already turning for next week's shot, when my birthday happens. Wonder if I can pull it off!

My 52-week project goal is not only to share with the visitors to my stream Who I Am, but to present opportunties for me to discover more about myself and see just where this self-digging and exploration takes me. The main goal is to have fun with it. It's proven a chore in the past and I hope the once-a-week timeline will free up my energy and creativity. Perhaps this is a resolution in some small way: for me to tap more into my own artistic nature and set that free using my lens and my imagination. Not a bad first commitment as 2012 begins...

Happy New Year to all of you and hope it's a magical one!

My Want

He turned 2 1/2 years old last month. This is the first Christmas he is 'aware' of someone called Santa. That he knows Rudolph is a reindeer with a red nose. I am teaching him as much as his little mind will comprehend about the Wintry Solstice (the hollyday his mum prefers). This time last year, we had a lot more snow in our old village than the light dusting that has fallen thus far where we now reside. I'm praying for a storm.

snow falling on cedars

This past weekend my parents took him while I went out into the country and came home with a scotch pine, wobbling my unwieldy load through the side door and plopping it inside the stand. It is still lopsided. I can't get it straight and haven't decorated it yet other than adding the lights he insisted should be on it. We will decorate it together next Saturday and I will make popcorn and string it and hope he doesn't decide to eat it off the tree.

December morning, bananas and honey

I am cherishing this Christmas. I imagine it is the simplest it might ever be. When I tried to explain to him about Christmas morning and getting a present, he studied me carefully. I asked him, "what would you like under the tree?" and held my breath. His first instinct was to shout the name of the daughter of close friends of ours. I try to explain to him that we can't put people under the tree as gifts (HA!) and what kind of present might he like.

He said, "My want...a red present!"
He said, "Mommy get a blue present!"

"Perfect!" said I.

And that is how I feel. I think to myself, "you are my little blue present, sweet boy." The morning of the 22nd, which is when Solstice falls this year, he and I will open these colourful presents, whatever they are and I will leave a few more under the tree for Christmas morning. Undoubtedly he'll have a few more to open at his grandparents.

handful of stars

But as I become increasingly disillusioned with how commercial this season becomes, I cherish this moment in my heart. I know in a couple of years a tinge of its complete innocence will be lost to him describing to me exactly what brand and what name of item he wants: "not the one with the..." this, "but the one with the..." that. I know he will still hold a lot of innocence for many years to come. I'm turning 45 next month and like to think (I hope) that I still do.

But this moment. This moment. This Christmas.
This one I will always remember as perfect in its simplicity.

Some close friends will gather with us at our home the evening of the Solstice and I will fill paper bags with sand and stick tiny white candles upright in them, light them and line them up and down my driveway and along the porch to guide them to the wassail warming on my stove.

tin tree

And hopefully I can instil in him the importance of giving back. To the community in which we live. To the earth. To thank our yule tree for coming into our house. When we burn the yule log from last year's tree. To the sun for warming our toes again as she stretches the days back towards Summer Solstice. To the cherished gift that is friendship and the reason his very first instinct was to shout my friends' daughters name as the perfect gift for him on Christmas morn. That is what "my want".

peace on earth

Happy holly days, everyone!

xo

Safe

It's 2:45am. I can't sleep. One part longtime insomnia since giving birth. One part overemotional weekend. My body, my nerves are still attempting to unwind.

My son has been battling what I was told was an ear infection since Thanksgiving weekend. But it turned out to be a very serious viral illness. I could not figure out why the amoxicillin he had been put on was not eradicating high fevers at night. Two weeks ago he vomited at daycare. I took him to a walk-in clinic. He had already been on a high dose of amoxicillin for 5 days and I thought it had resolved the ear infection.

Again, he was put on amoxicillin and, by the following Wednesday, his body broke out in what was thought to be hives. I took him to an after-hours clinic: third time he'd seen a doctor in 2 weeks. I was told to lather him with aveeno natural colloidal oatmeal to help with the itching and give him some benadryl.

at my friends' cottage in September



Two days later, his body had changed dramatically and I took him to emergency. He was whisked in ahead of everyone else. The doctor wasn't quite sure what we were dealing with and asked us to stay for an hour. After the hour had passed, he said we were going to do bloodwork. After the bloodwork, he told me he'd asked the pediatrician on call to come see him. She diagnosed it and said, "it's not hives. He is not having an allergic reaction to a drug. He's fighting a bacterial infection. A mycoplasma."

He was admitted to hospital. They kept him in for two nights to rule out whether his symptoms were related to two other conditions that were lifethreatening.

I can't exactly describe how it feels to look a doctor in the eye as they tell you they have to rule out some lifethreatening conditions for your child other than to say its hell on wheels. Your heart, where it normally beats beneath your left breast, moves up into your throat so you can't breathe so easily and you forget about everything in your life. Nothing else matters but that your child is suffering and that he become healthy again.

lounging in the sonroom

He was put in isolation and visitors had to wear masks and gowns. Not because he was contagious but to protect and strengthen his own immune system. I didn't leave his side, of course. I didn't even shower or change my clothes. My hands just kept lathering him to help relieve the need to itch. He was not dozing off for more than an hour before he would awake again to scratch himself and cry out, "itchy! itchy!"

He has always had clear skin and how his body had transformed scared the shite out of me. His little feet and hands and face swelled up like tiny balloons. His entire body from his scalp down to his toes was covered in raised, red-purply welts with white centres which eventually changed and merged together in a blotchy pattern, not so raised anymore but with brown/bruised looking patches on his skin. He was fighting fighting fighting this mycoplasm and now I knew that this hadn't been a simple ear infection which is why the amoxicillin hadn't resolved it. He'd been fighting this thing for 3 weeks, really. And what a brave little man he was. What a stellar patient. Thanking the nurses and doctors in his sweet, little voice, "Sankyou!"

On Sunday, they ruled out the two more lifethreatening conditions and we were released. Today was the first day he smiled in what felt like weeks. He played; he joked, even. On doctor's orders, he must stay home for the week to further strengthen his immune system as daycare can be riddled with germs. I am still coming down from the crazy emotional chaos I went through this weekend, watching him suffer and not knowing what it was exactly he was fighting and praying (yes agnostic-me) that it was not one of these other two syndromes.

Sonshine

The markings and itching have diminished considerably. He is returning to his happy, playful self. Children are so resilient and their inner strength amazes me. As quickly as he appears to be recovering, I think it's going to be a while for me. I'm nowhere near over what we went through yet. There was no Hallowe'en today. I didn't want him exposed to a gazillion kids with potential colds and flus ringing the doorbell after what he just went through. He was showered with treats without dressing up. This weekend had been scary enough for both of us already!

But I am thankful. I am so thankful. For the love and support of my family and friends. And for a smiling, happy, playful son today whose skin is clearing now. I know there are parents out there right now in hospitals dealing with worse nightmares. Where the kids actually have the nightmare conditions ruled out for my son. Or any kind of illness that is lifethreatening. Some of them likely don't even have hospitals to care for their kids. Free health care. Clean water never mind a hospital bed. My heart is with them this night. I only had a tiny, bitter taste (and it was blessedly brief) of what they are going through.

Sonshine is going to be just fine. And has begun to shine again from the inside. Leonard is singing, Hallelujah, as am I.

He is home. He is safe.
Safe and sound.

Click

A smirk forms as I compare this year's meagre blogging output of 9 to last year's whopping 43 posts. The total is directly proportionate to the growth, mobility and energy rate of my son (and the exhaustion factor of his mama).

I miss writing. And often, these days, the only time I can devote is the wee hours of morning. It's 2:59 right now. I'm awake because my son is finally sleeping. Last week it was ear infections, this week fever during the night, several nights in a row, and now, vomiting.

chocolate cake cheeks

I look back through my blog and want to kick myself. My posts have been so infrequent this year, that when I finally put my fingers to keys in the wee hours like this, I end up vomiting myself. On the page. My posts read like long, lazy, badly edited novellas. I need to hone the discipline required to keep it short and sweet and maybe the act of writing a blog post would not prove so overwhelming and demanding of my time! Haven't posted in a while but my blogging friends keep me inspired and I discovered yet another new blog to love this night. 'Bakerbabe'! What a great name and a lovely gal!

Lately, my precious spare time has gone towards exploits primarily photographic than literary. I belong to a club of photographers via flickr and finally met some of them for a drink and to partake in some night streetshooting. This involves approaching actual strangers and asking them if they'd let me shoot 'em. Camera, not gun. Ahem.

Streetshooting: Sacha with his uke

What a wildly intimidating journey for me because I have so very much yet to learn and absorb (about my own camera never mind shooting strangers). The club has some very patient mentors, thankfully, and I took full advantage of some fancy equipment with my Canon. Turned out to be a really fun and informative night. I am so accustomed to shooting inanimate objects in the light I prefer. When it comes to animate, I feel most comfortable capturing my son. He's my easiest, handiest and most compelling subject! A gaggle of lovely, local girlfriends have promised to be my next victims so I can acquire more practice in shooting people. Maybe I can convince some male friends, too. Have yet to purchase some extra equipment (and get my shite together) before that can happen.

Streetshooting: the fun and funky John Q.

Mastering portraiture intrigues me - not the stiff, boring, posed kind, but a far more journalistic snapshot of real people and their real lives. As scary as this latest adventure proved for me, it was also highly eye-opening and rewarding. And it markedly improved my comfort level approaching strangers to snap some photos at a recent birthday party for a friend's daughter. More and more, it's as though my camera is becoming a kind of spare limb extending from my body — something I use to reach out, touch, to embrace everything around me. I am 'owning' it, finally.

Strangers no more: shot two hours after meeting this lovely family.

And as I experiment and explore, it's not only the shutter that clicks, but my relationship to the world around me, new people I meet, Nature. Life. Life can whiz by you. So it's been really great learning to freeze frame some of its more precious moments. And discover people I would not otherwise have had the pleasure of meeting. If there is a belief that a camera can capture someone's soul, then I embrace that thought. When a portrait lacks 'soul', it's just not as captivating, in my opinion.

Connecting, clicking, with other souls on this planet is really the point of all this, right?

Yes, Life flies by much too quickly so here's to longevity! And to moments of brevity and levity, too. So much is worth the capturing via words and lens.

I hope to do it justice.

Ketchup

Yes, actually, I am still recovering from the Harper majority win, why do you ask?

When I last posted, I was going to follow up my political plea with a post called The Hangover or The Morning After The Night Before. Unfortunately for the next reign of Harper there is no morning-after pill. I am still floored. What galls me is that violent riots shook Vancouver the other night when the Canucks lost the Stanley cup but people DIDN'T take to the streets after Harper WON! The riots post the Bruins win left a bad taste in everyone's mouth across the Nation.

I don't mean to imply I encourage such a disgustng display of sorelosered-ness, but if it had happened after the Harper win, I might have understood a bit more what inflamed the rioting. I don't understand those nimrods in Vancouver who left the rest of their city and country flabbergasted and ashamed. When you witness around the world what people actually riot for, when it's legit - the right to vote, to overthrow a dictatorship, stuff like that - what happened in BC makes you just shake your head. Pathetic.

My girl

The thing is, I really was going to write a response to the Harper win, but my dog died two days after he was voted in. She was 14 years old and I first got her when she was about 9 or 10 weeks old. I can't write about her right now. But I do plan to write a memorial post dedicated just to her. Her loss kind of knocked the wind out of my sails for a bit and I didn't care much about Harper anymore (the ire over his majority win is rearing its ugly head once again, though, to be sure. It's like a zombie that will not stay underground.)

say cheeeeeeeeeeese

Also, since I last posted, my baby turned two years old. Jesus. So yeah. I've yet to write about all I feel about that. Since the last post there's been a death, a birthday, a wedding and a baptism. It's like I've been cast in a Mike Newell film. I guess it's true what they say: when one door closes, another always opens. If a door ever closed on Harper, though, I hope it just stays shut. No welcome back mat rolled out for him again, please, Cosmos, I beg you.

So that's the current plan: I'll be playing some 'ketchup' for the next few weeks and will endeavour to post briefer, more concise, blog-sized, edible posts more often rather than being absent for months at a time and then trying to catch up by writing a novel. I've lots to say...but I'm going to have to work backwards a bit to catchup and then I'll just move forward at a better, more regular pace from there.

fresh maple syrup

Thanks, again, for your patience. And the condolences I know you send to me. For the Harper win. For my doggy loss. The weather has been matching the mood of these events pretty well over May - it was both wet and cold. But now the sun seems finally to have located where I live. I think he just got lost for a while there. With solstice approaching this week, I really do want to believe that summer is finally here.

We could all use a little Vitamin D right now. It's time.

Slaying the Dragon (Part II)

(...continued from Part I)

Since the second week of March, there visited upon us, back-to-back, non-stop illness in one form or another. I think it began when I stayed out all night in the cold to grab him a spot in a highly popular local daycare. I'd heard the stories that people "lined up the night before" and I was thinking this meant perhaps 10pm or midnight. Registration wouldn't open until 8am but when did I end up lining up? 5pm the night before.

That's right. Twelve, perhaps fifteen crazy-ass parents lined up in the cold outside a daycare for 15 hours until those blessed doors opened for 8am registration. My parents took him for me and, unlike most of the other parents in line, I had no partner to "switch off" with. My body was cozy. Yes, it was early February, and I had donned every layer in my closet, but my feet were freezing! I begged everyone to let me keep my spot while I raced home and put on my cross-country ski boots. They were gracious enough to allow it. Hell, it actually became a really neat, bonding time with some funky people. There was a guitar, a ukelele. Everyone sang, told jokes. Someone had set up a tent. A couple of guys brought a propane heater. And when one of the spouses showed up close to midnight with a bottle of bourbon or scotch, we were suddenly figures in some Tom Waits song because by that hour, let me assure you, none of us cared we were all swigging from it like Depression-era, train-hopping hobos.

Singing the Sheep Dip Blues

Of course, come 8am when other dazed, sleepy parents trickled in who had not heard about the night-before-lineup-rumour-that-turned-out-to-be-true, the sudden realization that perhaps waltzing into a daycare to sign your child up with the reek of bourbon breath was perhaps not the best first impression to make dawned on all of us, but by then it was too damn late (or early) and we were too exhausted and frozen to care. We were only too happy to be herded like sheep into the warmth of the actual building where we could begin to defrost, our hands shaking as we filled out the necessary paperwork, faint smiles playing around our frozen lips, proud of our sacrificial selves in the knowledge we had secured our bairn with a spot the next autumn.

A bonus: the knowledge that for the next few years, we as parents could walk our wee ones into the daycare pointing at the ground, saying, "See this slab of concrete? Your mother lay on that all night in the WINTER so that you could come here..."

Okay. Okay. I refuse, as long as I possibly can, to play the guilt trip card, but it's fun to dream and giggle over it now. I actually met some amazing people that night and thought, "Wow. These are the parents of the kids my child will be hanging with over the next few years. Cool."

The downside, of course, was the sinusitis that ensued. I quickly passed that on to my wee boy. And that, combined with the emotional stress of parting ways (me to work, him to daycare full days), brought on pneumonia for him. This was followed almost immediately by full-blown ear infections in both ears for me (loss of balance and hearing in my right ear for close to two weeks), followed by a bout of pink eye for him and then the nastiest gastro bug working its way through our region hit us both with all its might.

You give me fever

He vomited Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. I took him to emerg the Thursday and Saturday in between neverending loads of puke-piled laundry. My tummy waited until Monday to begin vomiting. I lost 8lbs in one week. And having already lost about 15lbs over the winter carrying him on my back in his carrier while we walked around town, I dipped well below my weight before I got pregnant.

For close to two months, not one week went by that one or both of us did not end up in emergency at the local hospital and/or our family doctor's office when we could get in: Sinusitis, Pneumonia, Otitis Media, Conjunctivitis, Gastrointitis. Somebody-save-us-nowitis. Bang, bang, bang, bang. By all accounts, our bodies were rejecting this huge transition in our lives and screaming, "We're not ready yet for this! We don't think either of you are ready!"

I spent almost as much time at home or in medical buildings as I did at the office and just as I'd returned, too. The other parents of wee ones on staff gave slight sympathetic nods and chuckles, recalling their own germ-induced onslaughts, I suppose.

Since last I posted, my wish was to turn my focus solely onto him for a spell during this massive transition back to work and into fulltime daycare, though it quickly became obvious I would have no other choice regardless. We have been going through extreme emotional and physical change (he is growing like a weed and I'm withering away to nothing). This blog o' mine remained sorely neglected. I wish to thank those of you who've visited, commented, discovered, read and stuck around.

In two weeks, he will, unbelievably, turn two years old and he is now, thankfully, thriving in his new environment. Got a note the other day from the daycare to say how proud they are of him that two days in a row when he saw another child crying, he went over and hugged him. He has moved from consolee to consoler already. I fought back tears reading that note, but the tears won, let me tell you. And even though I feel this kind of caring and compassion is just in his nature, I'm going to take full credit while I can. We've been, for the most part, on our own since he was born. Family and friends have their own busy lives going on, understandably. Such is Life. And we are surviving. Better than surviving. And, when in dire need, kind souls dropped soup to us, baked loaves, tucked chocolate and sympathy inside our screen door. We are blessed where we live.

The Dragon of Germ-ridden Daycare has been slain now, I hope. At any rate, I'm lowering my sword, dropping my shield and slowly raising my visor.

We are finally surfacing into health again, resuming happiness, and opening our minds and hearts to a Spring that has yet to really show herself. We call to Her now. Come, come to us! We need you. We're ready.

We're ready now.

Slaying the Dragon (Part I)

I recently wrote one of my writer friends that I felt my blog had become this withering, old grandmother of mine in some distant, remote long-term care facility I rarely visited anymore. Of course, both sets of grandparents are long gone for me. But I've been really missing blogging and feeling guilt over its constant neglected state. Life has felt more harried and health issues have been munching up the last few months, dining on each spare moment I might have had without even a belch.

Starting in January, we were allowed occasional visits to my son's new, upcoming daycare as long as I remained with him. I would take him and stand apart to observe how he played and explored his new environment. With each visit he seemed to grow more comfortable with the place and the number of other little people, the concepts of sharing, waiting a turn. Our initial visits were brief: perhaps an hour, no more than two, each time. I could sense that, though he was fine to go off and play without the interaction he was used to from me at home, there was a subtle "checking in" every so often. He would get lost in play but a glance would be thrown my way to ensure I was near and accessible.

Driven crazy by daycare

I thought he was adjusting admirably. My mistake was the February visits became much more frequent such that he became used to my presence there with him. There I was, patting myself on the back like a fool counting her eggs, believing the transition to fulltime was flowing as smoothly as possible. By the first day I returned to work fulltime (March 1), he was in shock that I would not be spending the 8 hours with him.

I began to measure his growing acceptance of this fact by where/when he'd begin to cry during the dropoff stage. At the beginning, he'd wail when I put him in the car on our driveway in the mornings. Slowly, I could get him in the seat tearless, but when we parked outside the daycare, he'd burst. Eventually I could park and he'd wait until he was inside the actual doors. Then a few mornings, we made it as far as down the hallway before the act of removing his coat in front of his cubby brought on Niagara Falls. On other rare occasions, I could get him all the way into the actual room before the waterworks.

What put my heart through the ringer most mornings was the fact that, in the face of his howling sobs and upstretched arms and the cries of "Maaammmmmmmmaaaaaaa", I had read in the literature that you, as the parent, are encouraged to keep a 'happy countenance' as you drop your child off so that she/he doesn't sense any worry on YOUR part about leaving her/him there for the day.

Now, I am a trained actor. In addition to four years of university training and various subsequent workshops and seminars, I've had a good amount of theatre and film experience. I further auditioned for the Royal National Theatre's Summer Programme in London, England, a programme which auditions in five cities in the States and two cities in Canada for a mere 30 spots each summer, and I got in and garnered some incredible training in that programme.

But I can say without hesitation that doing a tapdance with a big smile on my face while choking back my own tears and burying the deeply ingrained desire to grab hold of my reaching Sonshine and run out of that daycare with him every morning in some mad embrace, wild and happy once again, to the freedom and luxury of time we've had for close to two years was the most demanding acting job I've ever had.

My friend, Karl, tried to console me with "in a few weeks, you'll show up and he'll be totally indifferent to your presence and not want to leave what he's doing there and that will hurt even more." Damn you, Karl, for being spot on.

But just as I began to feel all sorry for myself that he was maybe no longer missing me or yearning for me the way every cell in my body was for him while I sat back at my desk, the onslought of germ warfare began. Perhaps this was Mother Nature's cruel joke, "You want more time together again? Okay, bring on The Sick!"

(Continued in Part II...)

The Ninth Life

My cat died tonight. He was 17. He had been mine for 16 1/2 years.

The way it happened was all of a sudden. He'd always been in good health. I guess that's usually the best way to go, they say.

I was playing with my son this evening in our front room and I heard my cat fall. I called out to him even though I know he has been deaf the last couple of years. At first I thought he was upstairs but when I discovered him, he was lying at the bottom of the stairs having what looked like an epileptic fit. All four limbs were flailing in different directions and his head was spasming like he was being electrocuted by some invisible cable. My first instinct, of course, was to pick him up and that's just what I did. He continued to flail and make biting movements with his mouth, jerk and spasm in my arms. I wrapped him in a blanket and held him until his body started to slow its movements. His head finally calmed, he started frothing at the mouth a bit and his tongue stuck out involuntarily. But the staccato of spasms gradually ceased until he lay still in my arms, something he has rarely voluntarily done in all the years I've had him.

I called the local animal hospital which, ironically (or not), was the same place I held my golden retriever when he died 16 years ago now. In fact, I ended up tonight in the same room with my cat when he was given his final injection. I felt as though my old dog was waiting there on the other side, my claddagh ring in his mouth, ready to guide this cat to my other kitty who passed away three years ago in June of 2007. They were both very close. Only about a year apart in age.

Life is so strange. We recently moved back to this area and ended up mere blocks away from where I first found this little abandoned, feral kitten. Actually, my twin sister found him. (Thank you, thank you, thank you, sis!) She had been visiting the duplex where I lived and we were painting my bedroom when she spied him outside the second story window. I called the Humane Society to see if anyone had reported missing a tabby kitten. I already had one cat and hadn't planned to have another, but they got along like a house on fire so I kept him.

My head is so full tonight of all the memories I have of him. My heart is full of them. Even in his dotage, he was so patient that I introduced a baby (of all things!) into the last year or so of his life. He was never declawed and had plenty of opportunity (and reason, likely) to protect himself from tail being pulled or ears being tweaked. But he would just strut patiently away from my son as though nothing had happened.

What comes to mind the most are the nights I would talk to him those months following the end of my marriage in January of 2007, especially once my first cat died the following May. He was my sole companion out there in our remote, rural farmhouse. I felt so thankful for his company and his love and affection. It was a lonesome time and a pretty damn emotional year or two that followed.

I think people who've never had a pet sometimes can't fully comprehend how much they become members of your family. How they are sometimes like your "children" (especially when you don't have any children). And my two cats and my dog were very much that for me for many years when I needed little ones to mother and love in that way.

I realized tonight, in conversation with my brother-in-law, that my cat who died today was only born a couple of blocks from here. Maybe he'd sensed that he had come full circle. That he was "home" again. Maybe he felt it was time.

I am very glad I was home when it happened. That I could hold him during the scariest moment of his life. He didn't know he was having a stroke. He didn't know what was happening. The vet explained that one pupil was dilated and the other wasn't. That he had lost function on one side of his body. She said we could wait a day to see how he does, but that he might have other seizures and, having witnessed him go through one today, there was no way in hell I wanted to risk him suffering that again. They left me alone with him for a few minutes and then returned and I held him while they gave him the shot to put him to sleep. They warned me if there is a struggle, as often happens, they would stop the injection and perhaps try another spot. I nodded. They asked me to hold onto the top of his body. I held him very gently. His little paws were crossed over my fingers and I cradled his tiny head in my right hand. He didn't move a muscle while they injected him and they both gasped quietly and said, "Wow, he is so sweet." Even in death, he was a gentleman. So patient and calm. That's how I knew he was telling me it was the right decision. He was ready to go.

Still, it rips your heart open. This is it for me. I know down the road I plan to get a puppy for my son, a companion of his own. Maybe when he's around 7 or 8 years old. But this guy is the last cat I will ever have. The two cats I had, I just can't imagine finding two better than them. I've always been a dog person and I guess I got lucky twice. My luck just isn't always THAT good. Murphy's Law tends to rule the day.

But I have to tell you. This morning. Uncanny. He must have known this would be his last day. When I came downstairs he was lying on the ottoman and turned to look at me. And he looked so beautiful curled up there, I grabbed my camera and took some shots of him.

Now, anyone who's ever photographed animals will tell you it's almost impossible to get a clear, focused shot. They turn their head in one or their tail twitches in another or they start to jump off the couch. They usually end up a complete blur. But he just sat there and let me take some lovely shots of him and then he looked me right in the eye, straight into the lens. Like he knew. Maybe he was saying goodbye and wanted me to have some proper keepsakes of him.

I didn't know they would be the last shots I would take of him. I want to share them with you. Here he is: Setanta.

For weeks now I've been complaining to anyone within earshot that there has not been enough snow to my liking and finally today the skies opened up and the white stuff came down. For good this time. To stay. On the drive home from the vet clinic they were falling as big and heavily as my tears. It's as if he made sure this would happen today. A goodbye gift to comfort me. A balm to my grief. To be blanketed in this way. Pristine, white snow covering everything. A clean slate. A new beginning. A final, perfect farewell.

Goodbye, my furry little guy. Thank you for being such a great cat! Thanks for being so g-d chatty. I loved that you were so talkative, especially when I was otherwise surrounded by silence a good part of the time (even during my marriage). I cherish the years we had on our very own out there on the farm. Just you and me. Thanks for making the good times over the years greater and the hard times easier.

And thanks for being so lovely and patient with my wee Sonshine. I know you were happy for me that I finally had a human baby to mother.

I know Brandy and Zosia are with you now and you're playing and all four limbs are working okay where you are and you can see good as new and you can hear just perfectly, again.

I hope, wherever you are now, you hear this:
I love you and I will miss you. Lots.

xo

Visionquest

When I enter the recovery room, I know instinctively the hysterical howling from the back corner is his. A nurse attempts to soothe him as I rush over. The first thing I notice is the blood seeping from his right nostril. They tell me to remove my coat, to sit in the rocker. I reach for him and he opens his eyes slightly, tiny slits to check that I'm finally here. His little hand reaches up to the tiny bump of skin just beneath my chin. It's a spot his fingers constantly seek and caress. In the dark of early morning, the bump assures him the person holding him is his mama. I fumble at the clasp of my bra. He is crying so hard, his mouth has trouble focusing on the nipple.  It closes and then opens in complaint again before trying to suck. Another howl interrupts my attempt at nursing. He will not be consoled so easily. Not after this. This betrayal.

The sobs do not let up for a good half hour. 40 minutes. He weeps uncontrollably. "How could I let them take him away?" his sobs shout.  "How could I let them stick him with needles?" they demand. They accuse me in no uncertain terms. "How could I let them put him under? And how could I not be there when he woke up from surgery?"

Daily annoyance.

I rock, rock, rock the damn rocker like I'm riding a bucking bronco. Finally, he begins to calm. This is the day I've been dreading forever. It's not his fault. Entirely my decision that he has undergone surgery. His blocked tear duct was supposed to mend itself by the time he turned a year old. The doctors showed me how to push the creamy goop out of his eye, in the hopes of healing without surgery. But at 18 months, he still awoke with the lid crusted closed, puss weeping out of the duct all day. His little hands perpetually rubbing it such that his eyelid became raw and red. I decided to pursue the alternative option: minor surgery.

Before surgery...

I know it was the right decision, but no one described to me the feeling of watching them walk him away from me to the operating room on his own, oblivious of what lies ahead. Strangers taking him. No one told me how the seconds would feel like hours sitting there in the waiting room. No one told me how fear increases exponentially along with the terrors of one's imagination: what if they give him too much anaesthetic? Would he die? Could they accidentally blind him? Stupid, irrational fears flying through his mama's head while he is unconscious. I almost cannot breathe sitting there alone drinking cold coffee. Not caring that the sandwich I packed is now stale, tasteless. Who can eat? Why did I do this to him? I am a cruel, thoughtless mommy to make him go in there alone so young and have them strap him down. Stick him with needles. Maybe we should have waited...

This moment, I can honestly say, is perhaps the first time since before he was born I have felt so acutely the absence of a spouse. I accept I'm a single parent. I don't think about it much. Generally, I don't have time to dwell on it. I just handle it. There's no self-pity involved or anything. It was my decision to pursue motherhood on my own. I'm a strong person. I'm his rock. But this moment. Sitting here in the waiting room. I am a puddle. Powerless. Vulnerable. How I long for a hand to hold mine at this moment, to reassure me. To comfort me. To share the burden of missing him, worrying over him. I'm a wreck. A total fucking mess, sitting here. What have I done to my poor little boy making such a huge decision on his behalf?

His hysteria when I arrive in recovery only exacerbates my guilt.

After an hour we are transferred to another recovery room and I lie back on the hospital bed as he clings to me, his sobs starting to slow, to quieten. Gradually they become softer, more infrequent, as exhaustion and stress surrender to slumber. He curls his body as close to mine as he possibly can and the catches in breath finally morph to tiny, purring snores. We lie there for another hour before I gently remove the hospital's striped pajamas and dress him for the stroll home.

Post surgery. Finally asleep.

His nose continues to bleed, a normal symptom of this particular surgery. He is drowsy walking around the kitchen. Still unstable, like a drunken sailor, weaving around the legs of the table. But he is smiling and giggling, giddy to be home again.

This is the first time his right eye has been clear since he was born. I note that his eyelashes are shorter on that lid. They have not had the chance to spread and grow as long and lush as those on the left eyelid. Perhaps now they'll have their chance to bloom.

Tonight I let him fall asleep in my bed, intent on assuring him I won't abandon him anytime soon again.

The next morning he wakes. His right nostril is crusted with blood, but his right eye is clear and his little fingers touch it momentarily in surprise. He realizes he does not need to finger the crust from his lashes. He opens both eyes no problem. He can see. All the stress of the previous day is worth it somehow.

I look deep into his irises, smile and say, "hi." He repeats it back to me. This is the first time ever he says "hi" back. It is as though he is acknowledging that this is the first moment he feels fully present. He can see out of both eyes. He is invincible. "Hi," he whispers shyly, smiling up at me. As if to say, "I see you now. You're my mama. Hi!"

My throat catches. "Gimme a kiss," I say. He throws his arms round my neck and touches his forehead to my lips. The blood from his nostril marks my breast. It's territorial.

"You are mine," it says.
"Don't leave me again, Mama," it says.
It says, "I forgive you."
"You made the right decision."
"Thank you," it says.

My lips form those two words, too, as they kiss the top of his pate.

"Thank you," they whisper.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Clean pair of eyes.



Music: David Gray, A Clean Pair of Eyes

All Hallows Eve

Life has been crazy but a good crazy. A better crazy than the preceding months which had stress piled on top of the crazy. Though there are days. There are days. The other day he was teething again. Pretty sure it was a molar this time because he wailed and wailed almost non-stop, almost all day. There was no consoling him. Every little thing irked him. Every little thing set him off. As a devoted parent, you do your very utmost to soothe, to comfort - you try everything: bottle, boob, tickling, cookie, boob again, sippy cup this time? This book? That elephant? This wooden xylophone? Hug. Hug. Hug. Hug. Kiss. Kiss. Wail. Wail. Let's go for a stroll!!!!

You want to cry right along with them when there is nothing that consoles them. But you can't. Maybe you do once they're asleep. Maybe late at night. Maybe you feel so knackered and unsure of yourself, so tired and sad about feeling you failed that day to make him smile, to stop the tears. Maybe you send an e-mail you shouldn't. One you feel sorry 'bout. A weak moment you hope can be forgiven...

Sometimes being a single parent on the challenging days makes you question if you are always doing the right thing, if you are making the right decisions, the best ones. There is no second parent to assure you so you just cross your fingers and hope you're doing your best. Late at night, maybe doubt slips in. Fear. Exhaustion. Worry. Grief. Loneliness. In my heart, I know that no day is bad enough I could EVER regret my decision to pursue motherhood. I would never trade this in for anything. Truly, I gladly take the hard days right along with the easy ones. I feel like a heel because I know no matter how hard my hard days are, others on the planet are experiencing REAL hardship elsewhere. What do I have to complain about at the end of the day? Absolutely nothing. I am blessed. So very blessed.

Thankfully the next day dawns and he is giggling when he first awakens. You whisper little prayers of thanks to gods you don't even believe in but maybe should. What a relief to see him so happy again, his usual self!

This week we get in the car and drive to buy a pumpkin out near where we used to live and I carve it (my first one since a little kid myself) and we dress up in costumes expecting hordes and hordes of trick-or-treaters. Only 12 kids actually brave the snow (yes, it snowed) and make the rounds and we have so much leftover candy, it's ridonculous. But what a treat to have kids come to our front door all decked out! To be in a neighbourhood! I hadn't had hallowe'en trick-or-treaters in a decade when I lived rurally. We had a lot of fun and our first trick-or-treaters were very special cousins to my Sonshine.

November 1st begins the Celtic New Year. The Festival of Samhain. And so we begin a new year in a new home all our own. Let's hope the next year brings less tears, much less stress, lots more laughter and joy!

Happy New Year, everyone! Enjoy the haunted pics below...

hitting pumpkin jackpot

dollar fitty for prime punkin 

don't be scared, come watch mommy carve the pumpkin!


oops. mommy broke the knife. merde.

hey! she has teeth, just like me!

hmmm. let's see. could I possibly be cuter? uh. nope.

mama, stop chasing me round the island!

grownup treats for the parents

a little kitten familiar for his witchy mama

these should last until Easter.  2012.

glow best in the dark...

Hope

As I write this, you lie curled in fetal position. A strand of my hair still entwined in your fingers from ten minutes ago when you turned and pulled my face close to yours, shut your eyes. Your soft, fragrant breaths hitting my nose in rhythmic caress before I silently, slowly extricate myself from your slumbering grasp.

You have just turned one year old. Your two front top teeth are coming down. One has broken through. Its neighbour on the left side, also. Three new teeth coming! I pause to watch your small chest rise and fall, the sides of your rib cage expand and release. Your tiny, open mouth is perfection. The length of your eyelashes astounding. Your face is still flushed. Ruddy from 48 hours of fever. I have nursed you through two days. You refuse food. You consume nothing but breastmilk. I rock you. I hold you. I sing to you. I love you.

What did I do to deserve you? What did I do to deserve you?

Last year I lay in this bed, just as you are doing now. Fetal position. Belly round and firm. Pillow between the knees. I could feel your kicks, your own tossing as I tried to sleep. It was like carrying heaven on my insides. Certainly, I felt angelic. The moving, stretching limbs inside me, a fallen, shooting star exploding. The labouring and birth, the ultimte act of Divinity.

Twelve years ago today, I saw blood on my panties while peeing in the washroom of a local diner on the way to visit friends. I was miscarrying my first pregnancy at 12 weeks. I look at you now.

Never did I dare dream this.

Every tear I shed those years my body remained mute and unresponsive or screamed aloud each attempt after futile attempt, treatment and drugs. Broken. Empty. Barren. Every tear I shed was some silent prayer that you would come to me.

Never did I dare dream THIS. This YOU.

I had donned a suit of armour. Every bloodstained month was another screw tightening its visor in the face of Hope. Terrifying, hope. My shield, protection. Don't hope too much or you will know devastation. You will know despair and sorrow. Do not go forth to meet the dragon Hope.

But I plodded forward alone, my sword at the ready. My knees were shaking. When I lifted my visor, I expected to be devoured for good. When I lifted my visor, a flame shot through my belly and buried itself there in the endometrial lining. A shooting star exploded.

Into you.

What did I do to deserve you?

Every pull of those 35 vials, every prick of those 35 needles, the tiny round dots of blood on my belly. Every failed month. Every tear shed. Every fucking thing was worth lifting my visor to look upon Hope. To not steal myself against it, finally. Instead, to let it enter me. Devour me. Spit me out. With you intact. Inside me.

A year ago today, I crossed the threshold of my farmhouse with you in my arms, just shy of one week old. Tonight I found out some truly, happy news concerning you and me and this next unfolding year. I can feel my first baby I lost a dozen years ago smiling somewhere out there. Looking down upon us and grinning. A twinkling in the universe. In the ink black night, a light glows a little brighter somewhere.

I stop typing and just savour the sound of your muffled intake of breath. Its song of release through your nostrils. Your shirt has this dinosaur on it. The words on your chest say, "I'm kind of a big deal." No shit.

You roll to your other side. My heart sings. It giggles and flips, in turn.

We begin another new adventure together...

Dia de la Madre

It's indescribable. But I'll try writing this post, anyhow...

For a long time now, my family has gathered together for a Mother's Day brunch. It was really to honour our mother. But for many years, it was a gathering I would dread. I hated going. After losing one baby, then trying trying trying for a number of years for another, then losing a second baby six years after the first baby...

Well, I'm sure you can imagine. It was a bit painful to be out for brunch where I was literally surrounded by mothers being celebrated and motherhood, the focus of the day. Everywhere I looked there were mothers and their little children, flowers and laughter and smiles and, best of all, homemade cards from their little ones.

I bit my lip, my tongue, tried to swallow my envy down with the pancakes and syrup, but it would just get stuck in my throat and I'd go home, curl up in bed and cry myself asleep into my pillow.

Eventually, I had to tell my parents I wouldn't be attending the family Mother's Day brunch. I just couldn't do it. I made a point of going separately to my mom's and giving her a card and gift that morning or the day before. They both understood my decision.

Last year was the first time in many years I attended the brunch. I was so round and ready to burst, literally as I would give birth three days following Mother's Day. I felt safe celebrating it a little early.

But today. Today was my very first official Mother's Day as a mommy finally. There was snow on the ground this morning. This, after record temperatures in April reaching 25 degree, summer-like weather.  On the drive to meet my family, the sky was full of fluffy, white clouds. And I thought that is just what my heart feels like today: bright, white, fluffy, weightless, glorious, breathtaking. Like a cloud without rain. Like a cloud whose precipitation is pure and white and falls slowly and gently and quietly on a May morning such as this.

How do I properly put it into words just how I feel this day? Nursing him this morning, I made sure the tears that flowed down my cheeks didn't hit the soft curls of his hair. Tears of relief. Of pure ecstasy. Of longed for Joy. Tears for the babies I'd lost. Tears for the baby I found. The baby I have now. Smiles and tears.

I overhear people bemoaning parenthood all the time. Rolling their eyes in collusion over the burden it sometimes is, and according to some, often is, as though it is more often than not. And even as a parent now, I remain in mute astonishment towards this attitude. I wonder if I will ever get to a stage where I take this gift for granted? This amazing gift bestowed and entrusted to me. To parent the child I have. Would I, too, be one of these nodding, winking people had I not endured such a battle to have my child? Would I, even if I'd had the struggle I've had, if my baby had been colicky, not so easy, not so perfect as he's been? I admit I have a hard time imagining me ever taking this gift for granted after all the years of wanting it for so long and dreaming of it and hoping for it and having those hopes dashed time and time again.
People say, "you must be tired." "You look exhausted." And I know I do. I am tired somedays. But it's a happy tired. It's a "I'm so goddamn lucky" tired. I wouldn't trade it for all the sleep in the world. People say, "it must be hard on your own." But I know, having lived both sides now: I would rather be alone with this gift of a child, than be with somebody without this gift. If I only had those two options, I know which one I would choose. Have chosen.

I am so lucky lucky lucky. I know so many women who have struggled with infertility. Who still do. Who have had one or more IVFs in their struggle and whose IVF surgeries failed in some way. The fact that mine worked on my first attempt, resulting in the birth of my beautiful Sonshine, is unfathomable to me after all the years of failed attempts and despair, loss of hope.

This day. To celebrate this day, finally! I cannot describe it. But I will say, it feels like heaven. And I am over the moon this day.

Today, before leaving for brunch. I caught a gift outside my front window: a very pregnant robin perched on the wooden stoop in the snow. A sign, perhaps. A message...

Happy, Happy Mother's Day.

Showered with Love: Celebrating 9 Months

Just a brief little note today. I've got three agents coming to the farmhouse on the weekend and into next week, just to give me a sense of its value and some tips on what I can do in preparation for putting it up for sale so as to maximize the asking price. I hope to have it up for sale by the end of March at the latest, if not earlier. (I sigh as I type that. A sigh of melancholy. A sigh of relief, too. I know it's the right decision for us both.) Yesterday, I could smell Spring in the air, even though it was snowing...

Frontierswoman gatherin' her firewood.

My son has now turned 9 months old. I cannot believe he is almost one year! He is as old now as the time he spent growing in my womb. Two different worlds, altogether, but our bond is the same. It is surreal to think back when I carried him in my belly. The absolute JOY of that! I never thought I'd get to know it.

Diabolical cuteness. Mwahahaha.

The day my mother and sisters held my shower was Sunday, May 3, 2009. My twin sister (who was also my birth partner) did all the preparations herself and, with my mom, helped me clean my farmhouse that morning while I waddled around trying to assist them. What would I have done without them? My twin sister actually handcrafted about 100 birds for the special day. She not only printed them and tied them together, but she's a graphic designer, so she designed each beautiful, intricate pattern on them herself. WOW.

More William Morris than Alfred Hitchcock.

Pre baby shower.

This room was a former studio space I had renovated into a bedroom for myself and my new baby, so we could share some mama-baby space for a while on the main floor of the farmhouse, conveniently closer to laundry and kitchen.

 

(I know Ciara, my Irish blogger friend from Milkmoon, will appreciate my apron lampshade - something I threw over the lamp to soften the light - and the Burton print from the National Gallery of Ireland, Meeting on the Turret Stairs, which portrays a bit of a tragic love story.)

Post baby shower. Birds and gifts galore!

We are now in our separate bedrooms upstairs, of course, but this is the room in which I did all my nesting, preparing for the arrival of my sweet child. There was a lot of love put into this room. And the day of the shower, a lot of birds flew around rejoicing. It was as though I had my own winged messengers foretelling the coming of the birth of my son. He was born about a week later...the happiest day of my life (thus far).

cake at my shower: robin with nest
(this photo and cake courtesy of my twin sister and birth partner)

The next big family birthday celebration is for one of my brothers who will turn the big 5-0 in April. After which, I'll be thinking about a very special cake for the following month. By then I trust my home will be sold and I'll be in that in-between stage just preparing to move without the stress of still having the house on the market. In May, I hope to still be here at the farmhouse to celebrate my son's first birthday party. My plan is to move by June 1st, if it all goes smoothly. I can't believe that is only 3 months away.

It will fly, like all the birds in the room of his first waking memories...

Music: Lullaby Mountain, The Acorn