MenGetPregnantToo

Back to School: Being an Office Parent Means Missing Important Moments.

While carrying out the act and art of parenting, there will inevitably be occasions when, despite being motivated by the best intentions, you can't help but feel you are doing more harm to your child than good. For me, my son's first two months of kindergarten fostered such feelings.

I would walk him along our usual path from home; through a park lane shaded by trees, past a local playground in the woods, across his school yard to the side door of the building. During our fifteen minute walk, I would hold his little lunch bag in one hand, and his small palm in my other. We would talk about his world: why weeds exist, how speed bumps are manufactured, and we would listen for the whistles of cardinals and the thunking of woodpeckers. We knew that as long as the school bus passed us on our walk, and hadn't already rumbled up the street, we were on time. He was always relaxed, chatty, and full of good humour; until we were a couple of breaths from the school door. There, his lip would begin to quiver, and tears would well in his eyes. He would look toward the asphalt as I kissed him on the cheek, told him I loved him, and that he should have a good day at school. He would continue whimpering as he disappeared through the doors; one of the smallest of boys in a building filled with worker bees who had long since become accustomed to life in the hive.

My own emotions would often conquer me as I retraced my steps to our house.  Why were we forcing him into this situation? Look at the sadness we were causing. Would he become resentful of parents who insisted on sending him away every morning? After all, in our province, kindergarten isn't mandatory. What if we deferred school one more year? What made wrestling with this situation even more difficult was that once I reached my driveway, I, too, had to leave home for the day and head to work. From that point, until I returned home, I felt like I was flying blind.

Granted, my wife was home for the rare phone call from the school to convey the details of our son's tummy ache. He wants to know if he can come home after lunch, the secretary would relay. Sure, his mother would answer. She would be there with a hug a few minutes later. She would also be shoulder to shoulder with the other parents at the end of the school day when he came galloping out of the same doors through which he had entered weeping only hours earlier.

"How was school?" she would ask.

"Fine!" he would answer with a smile.

She would convey to me when I called from the office that there was never any indication that his day had been anything but pleasant.

During those hours, however, between his sadness as he disappeared into a crowd of students, and his joy as he bounded back home, I would go about my work, miles away, constantly distracted by my ignorance concerning his well being, as well as my own helplessness and the certitude I was doing more harm than good. I was surprised how much these feelings contributed to my level of stress and sense of urgency in completing any project before me as quickly as possible. The stress would often be compounded by things which were even further beyond my control: being stuck in traffic, or having to stop for gas, or groceries. I so wanted to see for myself that his smile hadn't lost lustre, that he was still launching himself off the couch like a rocket, and most of all, I think I needed to know he wasn't resentful, and that I was, in fact, doing more good than harm.

As the months went by, not only was it clear he had found his niche and was thriving in his class, but as I became friendly with other parents, I discovered most of our stories were similar: weepy five-year-olds who gradually overcame the trauma of life in a "big school", to transform into flourishing six-year-olds parading out of the building with hands full of cardboard artwork, heads full of new expressions, and faces full of joy and missing teeth.

That was one year ago.

On Wednesday, my son begins grade one. It once again coincides with one of my busiest weeks. I will drop him off shortly before eight, and not return home until after he's in bed. My only reference of his adaptation to his new environment, new challenges, and new expectations of this school year, will be those eighty-or-so minutes from the time I wake him up, until I leave him at the threshold of first grade. Of course, there will be phone calls to and from home to fill what blanks they can. And conversely this year, his is already enthusiastic about having his own desk, and wearing his new t-shirt and fleece which brandish the school logo. But, I've already been forewarned of a supposed abundance of homework in first grade, and how not all first-grade teachers are created equal, and about how the curriculum becomes much more challenging.

All that is somewhat easier to deal with this year. I'm learning that children survive almost anything which comprises the natural evolution of growing up. I'm accepting that it is through challenges that children develop and excel. And most of all, I know that at the end of each day, he is coming home to a hug from his mother, a sister who yells his name and hops up  and down when he walk in the door, and a house full of things which are safe and familiar to him. For this first week, I will look forward to our morning walks, and to sneaking into his room at night, and kissing his sleepy cheek before I climb into my own bed.

Next year will be a different story. Next year my daughter begins kindergarten, and the experience of those first week jitters begins again for us both. She has a different temperament than her brother, so I'm uncertain if she will exhibit his same sadness and anxiety. All I do know is that, at this time next year, I will be wishing I was home for it all.

 

A Family Dog is a Long Way Off.

This is dedicated to Harley, the Wonderdog, and to my sister, who promised she wouldn't take offense:)

I grew up with a dog; loved the guy. Smokey was purchased two years before I was born, which meant that for the first fourteen years of my life, I only knew a household with a family dog. I walk with him, played with him, brushed him, and sneaked him food underneath our green melamine kitchen table. I remember being told one day, on my way home from school, that Smokey had passed away at the age of 16 1/2; I grieved. Conversely, my closest childhood friend had a pair of Bouviers in his house; he couldn't stand the things. He kept kicking them out of the room when they wanted a belly-scratching. Whenever he sent them away, I would call them over to my side of the couch for some love and attention. I couldn't understand how anyone couldn't want and love a family dog...until now.

 

We have three permanent, non-human residents in our house: Casper the guinea pig, and a couple of fish: Spot and Oscar. Since our household has that magical formula of tw0 young children and no dogs or cats, we happily volunteer to take care of other people's pets when family members leave on vacation. I'm happy to do it; it's like being an uncle: all the joy of having the kids frolic with a boisterous canine, and the freedom to hand the creature back to its rightful owner after a couple of weeks.

However, during the doggy daycare period, I become repeatedly reminded that I am far from being ready to become a full time dog owner....it's the little things:

* Like cuddling with the kids on the couch, wondering what my four year-old ate which gave her such foul gas, only to realize there's a dog panting on the carpet at my feet. I'm never sure if that smell is the pooch's breath or some emanation further down her digestive track; it always takes me  a couple of days to identify one as the perfume of old fish, the other as, well, just plain funky.

* Like finding time between work, cooking, folding laundry, up-keeping a home, and crawling along in bumper to bumper traffic hoping to make it home for dinner only to make it on time, but first having to patrol the backyard for canine droppings before they become pancaked to little sneakers and bare feet. At first I would follow the dog into the backyard and immediately attempt to pickup any bowel movements, but  found they were easier to grip if I waited a few hours.

 

* Like trying to take two steps from the stove to the sink while balancing a pot of boiling pasta, only to stub my toe on a furry rib cage belong to the animal who is once again lying on the floor three-and-a-half inches from my feet. (My son also tends to hover, but since he's taller than a dog, the result is usually my elbow in his eye).

* Like seeing what I, from a distance, perceive to be large spiders on the carpet and sofa, but realize are two of two thousand tufts of dog hair creating a new rug in the den.

 

* Like being greeted first thing in the morning, not only with the questions: "What's for breakfast?", "What are we doing to day?", "Can you sit next to me?" and "Do I have to brush my teeth?", but also with a barking dog rubbing my shins because she really needs to poop in my yard.

* Like having a guinea pig who's been given some sort of cheap kibble which causes her to drink abnormal amounts of water, giving her guinea pig diarrhea, so once I'm done picking up gag-worthy piles of doggy-do outside, I'm greeted with the scent of a rodent-with-the-runs inside.

I know, it's official, the older I get, the closer I am to completing my transformation into a stodgy old man. But we are who we are, and though I may one day find myself alone on a porch in a rocking chair making sure the neighbourhood kids aren't playing on my property, for now I do consider myself an animal lover. It's just that at this stage in my life, there are certain species I can love only a week or so at a time.

 

The Charms of Family Rest Stops are Gone.

I've just returned from a family road trip along a stretch of Canada's busiest highway: the 401 between Montreal and Toronto. As a child I made this journey several times, it used to be 550 kilometers (342 miles) of peaks and valleys of boredom and intrigue. Now it's a trip through the Twilight Zone.

The Road Trip - Way Back When:

Growing up, my only first cousins lived in Toronto. While I couldn't wait to visit them - they were a decade older than me, and as such commanded a fair bit of hero worship - the drive west would inspire only dread. Were we two adults and four children travelling before the era of mini-vans and portable DVDs. We were six people in a sedan, with luggage filling the trunk, and nothing more than a colouring book and a Star Wars figurine each to keep us occupied for the six-hour trip. My sister and I are the youngest, which meant she was sandwiched in the front between my parents (remember the joys of bench seating?), and I was shoulder to shoulder with my two older brothers in the back. As the youngest, we were always forced to sit in the middle since we were also the shortest; this meant our little legs were the most suited to dealing with the exhaust hump running down the middle of the car. The middle position of my family's sedan made flying economy feel like napping in a Barcalounger. Not only was the seat itself cramped, but while my brothers could rest their heads and pillows against the windows, when I dozed off my head would loll against one of their bony shoulders, only to be unwelcomingly shrugged back towards the middle of the vehicle; there were no headrests  of consequence.

All this to say: I really looked forward to those rest stops.

We almost never stopped for fast food. My whine of "I'm hungry" was often met with an offer of fruit. Great; only 437 kms and four peaches to go. Every hundred kilometres or so, there were rest areas; a place to park the car and make use of relatively clean washrooms, picnic tables and a set of monkey bars. In between each of those was a service centre equipped with a saucer-shaped fast-food restaurant (usually Kentucky Fried Chicken or burger joint), and a Texaco gas station. We would only stop for gas, having already consumed our apples at the park thirty-minutes earlier.

Each of these stops had it's own examples of uniquely grungy features; rust around the supports of the UFO-shaped KFC, an overflowing garbage can (showing evidence of all the yummy pre-packaged treats being eaten by the other kids in the other cars) in the playground, and a huge RV with a California licence plate at the Texaco station. That was then.

The Road Trip - Present Day.

This corridor has recently undergone an overhaul. Imagine taking your favourite wrinkly, tie-died t-shirt, soaking it in bleach until it is as pristine as a sheet of loose leaf paper, and then ironing it until it has the smoothness of a bowling alley.  It is now just one of a billion white t-shirts being churned out for pennies a day, and sold in packages of three at department stores. Welcome to the Montreal-Toronto stretch of the 401, version 2.0. All the picnic areas have been removed, the Texaco's dismantled, and the UFO design launched space-ward. In their places: ON Route.

These fourteen new service centres are immaculate, modern, and well thought-out. Each offers washrooms with the latest no-touch flush, and wash and dry technologies, efficient fast-food services, and a convenience store for the health-conscious traveller (one can even purchase a pair of hard-boiled eggs, already peeled and vacuum-packed!). They are also all...identical.

At first, after a hundred kms or so, the initial ON Route is a welcome site. It's bright, it housed an Ontario Tourist Information Centre, in which an attendant offered my son a free map of the province, and both kids spent several minutes at the Airblade Xlerator Hand Dryer in the bathroom. But after two more hours in the car, we came upon another ON Route - identical to the last. Not just similar in colour scheme and structure; identical. Same building, same physical landscaping, same geography in the parking lot, same layout in the bathroom. My son was the first to speak: "Why are we driving in circles?” My daughter was soon to follow: "Weren't we here already?"

Fast forward three hours: another ON Route, same as the last one. This time, even I checked the odometer to make sure we had been moving, and then the nearest exit sign to make sure we had been moving in some westerly direction. Not only was the space unchanged, but it seemed the people were also as unvaried from ON Route to ON Route. A family or two with a crying infant, a family or two with a couple of wild pre-teens, a couple of retirees, and a couple of couples on their own.  The entire trip had been Groundhog Day'd. 

Before leaving on the road trip, my mother was agog at the fourteen tons of bags, toys, suitcases, and paraphernalia stacked by the front door, ready to be stuffed into the rear of the vehicle.

She reminded me how our family would make the same trip, with fifty-percent more passengers, and less than half the stuff.

Fortunately, we do live in an era of mini-vans, portable DVDs, and bags full of activities to keep the kids busy. It behoves us to keep things changing inside the vehicle as it travels along Canada's busiest stretch of road, since someone is seeing to it the stretch of road itself doesn't change at all.

 

Those Moments: The Affection and Agony of Parenting.

Recently, the kids were away for the weekend. They left at 1 p.m. on a Friday, and returned 4 p.m. on Sunday. As soon as they were out the door I experienced a very bearable lightness of being. I imagined the forty-eight hours ahead: the quiet, the sleep, the reading on the couch, the late-night movie, the slow breakfast, the third cup of coffee. But four hours after they left I made the mistake of watching Dr. Phil; something I hadn't really done since the kids were born due to the often adult nature of the program, and being otherwise too busy with life.

 
This particular episode dealt with two families; each story revolved around an abused child. The first spoke of allegations of sexual abuse of a five-year-old girl by her father. After undergoing a polygraph the father was cleared of wrong doing, however not before the pre-schooler was taken to the hospital and subjected to a pelvic exam. The second child featured that day was an adopted 7-year-old whose mother would fill his mouth with hot sauce when he lied, just before subjecting him to a cold shower. Both manners of discipline were "caught on tape" by the mother's slightly older daughter. If that wasn't horrible enough, Dr. Phil, though condemning the behaviour, revealed that forcing your child to drink hot sauce is 'commonly known' as "saucing", and is a widely practiced method of punishment.

 

I immediately wished my kids were home with me. They were with a very close friend of the family who I know treats them like royalty. They were in safe, loving hands, but after witnessing that level of cruelty on television, I was desperate to know they were safe. I had no choice but to wait for them to check into their hotel room, and then to check in with Mummy and Daddy. As I waited for that phone call, I realized what is left with you when your kids are not around are "Those Moments": the life events you experience with your children which leave you thrilled, scared, hopeful, laughing, despairing, and exhausted.

I had one of Those Moments recently. It was not very significant or consequential, but it caused a wave of reflection in me which was a reminder of how quickly time had passed since I was childless.

I was outside painting the deck, my daughter was at daycamp, my wife was at work, and my son was looking for something to do. One of the great challenges as a parent is convincing a child to occupy themselves. This is especially challenging when you are surround by wet paint, which means they cannot play near you, nor approach you to any immediate distance. Fortunately The Boy had recently fallen in love with a particular children's music CD. It had been sitting in the basement for the past three years, and he had previously rejected it. But, thanks to a child's lack of long-term memory, it was once again brand new to him. I dragged an extension cord outside, along with his CD player, a blanket, and his guinea pig and its cage. With the proper positioning of a beach umbrella, his little oasis had been created. I was told all that was missing was a bowl of crackers and a cup of lemonade, both of which I fetched.

There he lay.

I was a few dozen feet away, sweating under the sun as I painted, rushing to complete the job as quickly as possible while The Boy was still occupied, but trying not to go so quickly as to have to spend an extra day correcting my own sloppiness. About half-an-hour passed before I realized I hadn't been interrupted. My first though was that he'd fallen asleep. But, nope. There he was, laying on his side, his head in his hand, meekly patting Casper the guinea pig through the bars of her cage. Every so often his hand would leave Casper's mane and pop a cracker into his mouth. He never looked my way, never asked questions, and would move only to roll from his side onto his back as the CD started over. And over. And Over. He lay there for nearly two hours daydreaming on a blanket. This was the same child who as an infant would be passed back and forth between my wife and me because he didn't have the attention span to stay in his high chair for ten minutes while we ate.

Of course, not all of Those Moments are so serene, here are some of Those Moments sent in by readers; names have been omitted to protect, well, just because it seems to be the thing to do.

• "My 4-year-old daughter was playing with her friend. The game apparently involved my little one pretending she was a cat, while her friend fed her kibble. Unfortunately the kibble was an entire bottle of fluoride tablets. The scare of my life was driving her to the hospital, trying to listen for breathing as she slept in the back seat. Turns out there were not enough harmful ingredients in what she took for her to suffer any consequences, and we were discharged after a stern warning from the doctor about safe storage of medications and vitamins."
• "We were about to leave for a play-date, when my two year old got sick on the stairs. I assumed it was a minor upset tummy. It turned out to be severe gastroenteritis. There's nothing more draining than watching a 2-year-old receive intravenous fluids and run a high fever in a hospital bed for two days."
• "One memorable moment was when my son stuck the end of a pencil in his ear, He'd stuck it in so far, the eraser became dislodged from the pencil, and remained stuck in there. On the way to the pediatrician my son said: 'Mom, when he asks how it got there, can we not tell him it was me?'
• "As much as sometimes they drive you crazy, sometimes they're so precious it hurts. One drizzly afternoon, while walking quietly outside with my little guy - who can chat you ear off for twelve hours straight - out of nowhere he whispers: "I love the smell of rain." It was a moment within a moment.
• "The best moments with my daughter are the little things which otherwise seem insignificant; for instance when we walk side-by-side, and she reaches up to take my hand. I love knowing that what she needed most at that moment was human contact with mummy."
• "I love when my 3-year-old daughter comes running from the living room where we were playing together, into the kitchen after I stepped away for a moment, to give me heck for leaving the room without telling her where I was going."
• "The moments I can do without are the ones trying to get them all ready for school in the morning. I swear, if I said nothing to move them along, they could spend the whole week wiggling into a pair of snowpants."
• "My 4-year-old came up to me the other week and said: 'Mummy, you are an...apple.' I thanked her and said that was a very sweet thing to say, to which she replied 'Yeah, but, when I said apple, I meant idiot.  I heard that in Toy Story.' A special thank you to Woody and Buzz."