Tough Crowd

New recipe for black bean veggie burgers: a conversation.

The Girl: Mom, these burgers aren't really my favourite.**

PM: Ah, well, they're an experiment. I can try something different next time.

The Girl: It's a failed one, then. Yeah, I'd definitely say that this experiment FAILED.

The Boy: [retching and gagging, ultimately spitting his mouthful onto the plate] I CANNOT eat anymore of this. More mayonnaise is not helping.


** This is actually an improvement. After several years of petulant whining and declarations of the barf-tas-tic-ness of some of my less well-received culinary forays, we have agreed upon "this is not my favourite" as an acceptable form of registering disapproval while avoiding sending me into a rage of Do you know how hard I worked on this?! You are eating homemade ______, made from SCRATCH and it took me two hours and you can't even be the least bit grateful and polite about it?!

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Our "New" Playstructure

Hooray for down-sizing neighbours! Well, "up-sizing" is maybe more appropriate - our neighbours built an addition on their house last year and have discovered this year that they have more stuff than yard. So they decided the play structure had to go.

We had a play structure when we moved in, but it was really old and, alas, one day it started to break and we had to tear it down last summer. The kids were totally bummed.

Well, bust my buttons, but wouldn't you know it - last week our neighbour asked if we would want the play structure since they had no room for it and otherwise it was headed for the dump. Would we?!

We moved it from one side of the fence to the other (and by "we" I mean lots of other people, including The Husband, while I stood and shuffled my feet) yesterday. The Girl immediately got out her paints and started to deface personalize the structure with her own symbology.

Perfect timing for summer, I'd say.

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Wash, Rinse, Repeat

Sigh. The Husband is travelling. Again. Fortunately, it's domestic this time, so no worries as far as all the Icelandic volcanic action of late, but nonetheless, not my favourite.

(Yikes - I just typed that "favourite" without the "u." Cultural assimilation, thy name is dropped vowels.)

I'd be upset about being a single parent yet again so very soon except that he came bearing some very nice gifts after last time:

(Smart guy.)

This, my friends, is a for real crepe pan, dragged allllll the way home from Europe. Of special note is the fact that The Husband had to check his bag in order to transport it, given that it would be less than wise to try to take something big and heavy with a convenient handle as part of one's carry-on.

(Checked baggage is The Husband's nemesis. Nothing says, "I love you with all my heart" like standing beside a baggage carousel for your wife.)

Also above is a cute little personal espresso maker. It says it serves 3, which means that I can almost get enough for myself out of it. They are both fabulous, and the PM household was essentially Little Paris this weekend because of them.

And have I mentioned lately how much I love older kids? The three of us distracted ourselves from our missing fourth yesterday by riding bikes down to the ice cream shop and then to the lake afterwards, where the munchkins made a fortress for some poor worm who didn't wriggle away fast enough while I soaked up some sunshine and some Robertson Davies. I was totally impressed by how good they are on their bikes - we even had some shaky hand signal action.

We've also got new fun on the docket:

Yep, they've discovered the wonders of Dutch Blitz and beg to play every day. They're getting pretty good (well, good-ish - The Girl is quite meticulous about slowly selecting her three cards and then turning them over. It's not the most fast-paced, but we get the job done).

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The Worst Part

...is keeping the cell phone charged.

When The Husband travels, it doesn't take long before the mechanics of singly caring for two kids instinctively elicits the muscle memories of days past, back when I was singly caring for two kids for, shall we say, a bit longer than a week.

(All together now: blech.)

And it reminds me of what I've always hated the most about solo parent duty - the very "solo-ness" of it all. Not in terms of being the only one making lunches and driving kids to birthday parties and figuring out how to switch the amp to 6-channel so we can watch Fantastic Mr. Fox (aside: this movie is GORGEOUS. Watch it. [Also aside: YES!! I totally figured out how to make the amp work]).

No, the worst part about solo parenting is that the proverbial buck has only one final destination.

Me.

Who didn't clean up the kitchen last night? Me. Who didn't make sure there were enough cucumbers for healthy snack? Me. Who will the school call if someone falls off the monkey bars and breaks his arm? Me.

Which is why I feel the need to carry my cell phone with me all day, bringing it to meetings where my little pay-as-you-go Samsung must experience a tremendous inferiority complex in the face of all the Blackberrys and iPhones and fancy touch pad texty thingamajigs.

Now usually, my cell phone is somewhere at the bottom of my purse, if it's even turned on. Or charged. I get messages from The Husband: "Helllooooo. I am calling the bottom of your purse. You have it on vibrate again and if you don't turn your ringer on, you will never hear it. But even if you heard it, you would not be able to find it in time because of that huge purse that you insist on carrying filled with all that crap."

And this? Is okay. If all I'm waiting for are snarky voicemails, it doesn't matter if I don't answer it.

But when someone is in Vienna and may or may not even be accessible by phone, there is only one person who can make that dash to the emergency room, and that is me.

It's a lot of responsibility and it's wearing to have to add it to an already-full slate of keeping things chugging around here while also working full-time and going to band practice and teaching ESL.

But.

Wanna know the best thing about solo parenting?

The best part about solo parenting is that the proverbial buck has only one final destination.

Me.

Who gets to eat chips in the bed because there's no one else around to mind the crumbs? Me. Who gets to waive kitchen-cleanup because her book is getting good? Me. Who gets final say in how everything runs and doesn't have to "discuss" what is going to work best for the family since what works best for the family = what works best for me? Me.

It's tremendously freeing. It's my way or the highway, and if something didn't happen, it's because I didn't feel like doing it and I'm already okay with that. There are no unmet expectations to take me by surprise.

So much of coparenting nastiness takes place in that gap between where we each thought our responsibilities ended. Or where there's an overlap and we both consider ourselves responsible for something as well as the ultimate authority for how that particular thing happens - and then the teeth grit and the "discussion" begins as to why my way is better than yours.

So, it's the worst of times and best of times, I guess. Not my awesomest, but there are definite perks.

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Fun with Single Parenting! (Or: It's Chips in the Bed Week!)

It's a good thing I got to see lots of The Husband last week while the kids were up in Canada on their Spring Break. No sooner had we walked in the door after our Easter long weekend than he packed up and left again. For the entire week.

(Cue mournful violin music.)

Actually, the solo parenting gig gets easier all the time (but don't tell him that - I'm angling for a very nice treat from the drudgery of a European business trip that is somehow cheaper with a Saturday stay and thus requires a side trip to Vienna. Poor baby).

Part of it is just lowered expectations - I've learned by now that while it's fine to make plans to clean the house from top to bottom and catch up on the laundry and take the kids out on all sorts of adventures, as long as we get the big three (Fed! Alive! Safe!), it's a success.

Also, older kids rock. They can entertain themselves, they can read the instructions on their video games for themselves (ohhhh the Pokemon dialogue I have had to read), and they generally get their stuff done with only a minimum of nagging.

Of course, we're only into Day 2 and I'm still flying high from a suppertime declaration of, "Mom, you are the best cook," elicited by my husband-out-of-town specialty - spaghetti noodles from the box + sauce from the jar.

So we shall see if we can maintain this general sense of well-being.

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Happy Birthday, My Nine (*gasp!*) Year Old!

Oh child, so wacky, wild, and wonderful you are.

Watching you at play is like marvelling at the puppeteer who lifts hands and angles fingers just so, keeping all the intricate parts separate but working in perfect harmony ("now say that you are the cat and I am the innkeeper and now put this hat on...").

Hearing your stories is like falling down the rabbit hole into the Wonderland that is your mind, abounding with magical creatures and twisty, topsy-turvy plots.

Listening to you singing at the top of your lungs or playing the one piano song you know (Jolly Old St. Nicholas) is like listening to the cosmic dance of the spheres, so joyous is your love of music.

Riding the highs and lows of your hyperbolic assessments ("this is the best French Toast of MY LIFE!!" or "you are the worst mother that there EVER WAS") is like soaring and plummeting along a sine wave of absolutes, with your heart climbing to new heights and then descending to the depths of despair, all in the space of two minutes.

Smiling as your teachers affirm what I already know and tell me how bright you are, how enthusiastic you are, how quick you are, how kind you are, how sweet you are, is like feeling my heart swell and burst over and over with each word.

Smelling your just-washed hair and enclosing your shower-damp body in my arms when we have our nighttime snuggle is like seeing a deer between the trees in the morning mist and knowing that the smallest movement will scare it away, knowing that no matter how hard I try to stop breathing and mentally coax it to stay, no matter how much my soul tries to will the moment to last forever, to breathe don't move...no matter how much I want to hang onto you, as soon as I try, you'll bolt.

It feels like you're already leaving. For the first time ever, my birthday kiss to you must wait until late in the evening - if I even make it to Grandma's by midnight. You'll spend your birthday without me this year, when for the past eight April Fool's Days, I've begun that wackiest of days with an embrace from my darlingest daughter.

And yet, with a spirit as big as yours, it's silly for me to think mere distance can separate us. A girl whose imagination travels to tomorrow and back again in the space of a breath, whose web of words spins signs and wonders, whose song glories to the sky, whose heart enlarges to fit just one more every time you meet someone new, whose mind races and leaps towards each new discovery....

A girl whose lithe body and ever-lengthening limbs somehow still fit into my arms...

A girl like that could never be far from my heart, even if our birthday hug must wait until we are together again.

Happy birthday, most spectacular of daughters. May this year manage to keep up with you.

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