My Son Is One! (A love letter)

Well, technically, he's just shy of 53 weeks. Forgive me, it's been a busy week.

Fifty-three weeks ago, Jon and I went to the hospital after a night of what I thought was peeing my pants. "Great," I remember thinking while eating Thanksgiving turkey perched on a towel in my brother's old jogging pants. "This is the last humiliation that is my pregnancy."

Turns out, I had a slow leak. While my water was ready to break, Marshall sure wasn't. So, I was admitted and induced. And I waited. And waited. And waited. Don't ask me what was going on that night: the delivery rooms were full. All around me, I heard new mother after new mother grunt and groan and scream until her baby's cries pierced through. You know that feeling of frustration, desperation--almost loneliness--you get when you wait at a bus stop and countless buses packed with people zoom past you? Maybe I'll get the next one.

"Anything yet?" Jon would ask.

"Nope," I'd reply with a sigh.

A handful of bags of Pitocin and 21 hours later, our beautiful boy made his first appearance.

***

It was while rocking the baby in my increasingly creaky chair the other night that I got to thinking, "How many hours have I spent rocking Marshall in this chair in one year? How many lullabies? How many shared cries?"

It has been a very trying year, as most mothers would admit. It has also been one of the fastest years I've ever lived through. It is for that reason that I would voluntarily turn back time and live through it all over again, fussy nursing, toxic pooping, sleepless nights and all. So quickly do I forget what truly qualifies as a difficult night. Those first nights of living on adrenaline, where days and nights were one tiresome blur, where I'd catch Jay Leno, Conan O'Brien, Jimmy Fallon AND Carson Daly bleary-eyed; those were the toughest. So quickly do I forget how tiny, how unsqirmy he was. He is still my little baby boy, but comparing him to images of his freshly newborn cousin, he is bordering on "toddler." Already.

I told Jon the other night that I almost bought him a little gift on Marshall's birthday. That day is almost like a second anniversary for us, when a happily married couple turned into two sleep-deprived parents literally overnight. As most mothers would admit, the first year is equally trying on a marriage as it is on raising a baby. The two go hand-in-hand, after all. I am relieved to announce that we've survived our initiation. We have the gray hairs and wrinkles to prove it. Yes, we had a few rough patches along the way, but it definitely strengthened us in the long run.

I am afraid to brag too much for fear that I break the habit, but it seems as though Marshall is FINALLY sleeping through the night, to boot. That means that I, too, get a full night's sleep. Besides savouring a heavy glass of wine, I had been craving a solid seven hours of sleep for so long. So, so long. In a way, I think these full nights may be Marshall's little gift to us. "You've made it through the year, Mama and Daddy. You deserve a little sleep. And here, have a glass of wine while you're at it."

Happy birthday, Dear Marshall. Thank you for a year of tender moments, goofy times, many many milestones, and poop. God, there was so much poop. We love you more than you will ever know and we can't wait to get to know our little boy more and more.

Mama loves you, and that will never change.

xox









(Then and now: John Marshall Wayne Dukeshire)

A Day Care for Marshall

When Marshall was born, we were given a book called Une garderie pour Mateo. The cute picture book described the challenges that Mateo and his mother faced to find him a day care.

Well, that little work of fiction became our big reality over the summer when we scrambled to find appropriate day care for Marshall. My days on maternity leave were numbered. My return to the work force was looming. Baby needed a happy, safe environment to stay in while I worked. It broke my heart to leave Marshall in the care of someone else--a stranger, of all people. Up until then he had only been babysat three times by trusted family members. He and I were normally stuck like glue.

My father took the news of Marshall's unavoidable entry into day care especially hard. "Did you see that news report about that babysitter in Florida who threw a ball at full force right in the baby's face?" he asked.

"We thought the babysitter was dragging a doll by the arm until we realized that doll was really a child," my mother chimed in.

This wasn't going to be easy. For anybody.

I had heard that finding a decent day-care spot was as easy as finding a last-minute gift at a gas station on Christmas Day. Put differently, it was not easy at all. When I learned that a home day care was opening three kilometres away from my house at $25 a day, I jumped on that opportunity fearing that I wouldn't find anything else. Marshall and I visited and noted that the woman seemed very enthusiastic and sweet, the toys were new and the yard was equipped with swings and slides. Upon our second visit to seal the deal, Jon came along and we met the educator's husband.

"I don't like the look of that husband," Jon grumbled. "Never trust a chiropractor. They crack bones for a living."

So, I kept an eye out for other options. In August, a friend referred me to a woman she had met in the park who ran a home day care within walking distance of our house. Marshall and I went to check it out.

The basement play area was packed with colourful toys. For the moment, the educator cared for a two-year-old girl who got a kick out of styling Marshall's fine hair with a play brush and hairdryer. "She's Asian, you know," she told me. Staring at the sweet little girl with the jet-black hair, I thought that was obvious.

I was sold based on the arts-and-crafts activities that the educator liked to do with her kids. They decorated plates for Mother's Day. They made centerpieces for Christmas. And to kick off the summer season, she invited the mothers over for cosmos and a pool party.

When I phoned her to confirm a place in her day care, I was surprised when she haughtily replied, "Well, it seems as though I have some thinking to do. The little Asian girl's mother (why did she always insist on throwing in the girl's heritage?) has asked me to be her full-time nanny. But come to the park. I'll introduce you to another educator who lives nearby."

Feeling a little desperate to snag a day-care spot for Marshall, I agreed to meet her in the park. By then, my level of respect for the creative educator was plummeting. The frequent comments she made about the little girl ("She's so smart for her age. It's because she's Asian"), among other things, were turning me off. When she saw Marshall in the park, she exclaimed, "Blue eyes, blond hair... what a remarkable race you've created with that baby!" Wait, what was that?

I breathed a sigh of relief when she pointed me to the door of the other day care facility in the neighbourhood. I swooped Marshall out of his swing and into his stroller and we rolled our way to the house. Along the way, I worried over how I was going to approach the day-care worker. As if on cue, a dog ran out from the house and she popped her head out to call him back in. We introduced ourselves and the rest is history.

Marshall's educator is a no-nonsense woman, about five years younger than my mother. She has more than twenty years' experience in the business. Her toy-filled play area is bright and clean and tidy. The children are sweet. They immediately shared their toys with Marshall. Now, I don't think she goes out of her way to make the day-care experience an amazing one. But she keeps my baby safe. She cuddles him when he cries. She feeds him when he's hungry. And he naps for her like a champ, that little booger. (Marshall is notorious for skipping out on naps at our house.)

Knowing that he is safe in his educator's care three days a week while I'm at work reassures me. I'll take that over ambitious art projects any day. Leave the holiday centerpieces to me.

I'm Out of the House!

So, the boy will be one on Tuesday. A whole twelve months. That means that my mat leave has run out and Mama’s bank account is looking pretty pitiful.

I’m back in the office after a long hiatus. I left about three years ago to give self-employment a try. I rode that wave as long as I could, but years—YEARS—away from an environment with other adults can take its toll. I was becoming a recluse. Outdoor tasks like doing the groceries had become monstrous challenges. I don’t remember the last time I pumped gas in my car.

I got in touch with my former employer. Luckily, I had left on good terms. Miraculously, he offered me part-time work. It was the perfect solution for a near-reclusive mother of a one-year-old. I can make my financial contribution to the household. I can talk with other grown-ups. Best of all, I can still raise my son the majority of the week.

I am well into my second week at my new (old) job. I write children’s books for a publishing house in the city. I have an entire hour to eat my lunch. Since Marshall’s birth, I had gotten used to scarfing down my meals and rinsing my dishes in ten minutes flat. Needless to say, I have some time to kill on my lunch breaks.

I hope to use this newfound FREE TIME (yippee!) to get back into blogging mode. You can look forward to reading my take on the following topics:

* Marshall’s increasing mobility (He crawls! He stands on his own! He’s… playing in the toilet?! Oh, God, no!)
* Day care woes (What snotty, poopy virus does Marshall have this weekend?)
* Office life (How did I end up with the crappy cubicle?! The boss has a direct view of my oversized computer screen… Sigh.)
* Jon’s afternoons with the baby (The photo below speaks for itself. The boys found my balloon stash. Hahaha.)

OK, back to work :)

If You Can't Stand the Heat... A Step-By-Step Guide

The greater part of the province of Québec has been hit with a whopper of a heatwave, with temperatures climbing into the 40s if you factor in the humidity. How did we survive it?

Step 1: Install Air Conditioning
After suffering through one night of hot hot heat, Jon ventured under the stairs, pushed aside the elliptical machine, cooler and spare dresser and hauled out the old air conditioning unit we had back when we lived on the hot and noisy Plateau Mont-Royal. (Important note: It is never fun to install an air conditioner when the house is roasting. I love you, Jon.)

By the time bedtime rolled around, our bedroom was at a comfortable 24 degrees. However, Jon had not had the time to completely seal off the air conditioner. It wasn't long before a mammoth moth made its way into our lit bedroom. "Jon, we can't go to bed with that big gap in the window," I nagged said. Out came the super-expanding foam, and my nerves were relaxed enough for me to get some shut-eye.

While getting ready for bed on Night #2, I noticed a few small critters exploring the perimeter of the sealed-off window. I shrieked when I watched one bug make its way inside through a small opening. "Jon, we can't go to bed with that little gap in the window," I nagged said. Out came the removable window caulking and the window was sealed off a little more tightly. Blame it on the heat: my nerves were shot. I had nightmares of thousands of little earwigs making their way into our bedroom regardless.

Marshall has camped out with us in our room all week. While the bedroom is at a livable temperature, the AC unit isn't powerful enough to cool down the entire house. He sleeps no more than two hours in the playpen we set up in the room. After that, he's in between us in the big bed. Sure, babies are generally cute and cuddly, but there's nothing adorable about a sweaty, dehydrated cranky son grabbing at his mother like an inappropriate patron at a strip club at all hours of the night. Sigh. In no time, it will be winter.

Step 2: Find a Pool
Not only do we know people with swimming pools, but luckily, they like us. Our little family has taken a dip twice in our friend's parents' pool. There, we were able to lower our body temperatures to a reasonable level and partake in some excellent barbecued suppers. Jon, the non-breastfeeder, couldn't refuse a drink or two from the impressively stocked bar. What a treat!

Yesterday, my cousin invited me to her place for lunch and some pool time at her place on the South Shore. Ugh, cross three bridges and through heavy mid-week city traffic for a swim? I didn't hesitate to say yes. We had a great time eating hot lasagna in the cooled house with Kim and her two toddlers. And swimming with the gang was a hit! Marshall dipped his head in the water with the finesse of a drinking bird toy. Kim's youngest, covered in flotation devices, bobbed in the water like a pro. And her eldest boy was a champ at making big splashes when he jumped off the ladder into the pool. Watching the bigger boys kicking about in the water and messily consuming their Popsicles, I got a little glimpse of the years to come that afternoon.

Of course, there's no better way to end a day of cooling ones body temperature in the pool than to hunt for ones missing car keys, only to find them lying on the back seat of the locked car. Ninety minutes later, the tow truck arrived and jimmied the lock. Marshall and I were on the road again and in thick rush-hour traffic. I didn't mind, really. The boy was napping in his shaded car seat, the AC was at full-blast, and Radio 2 Drive was tickling my ear drums. We were probably more comfortable in my little car than in our house, really. Vroom vroom.

Before invading anyone else's pool, we'll have to buy another pack of Little Swimmers diapers. We're all out. I am pretty sure that we'd be guaranteed blacklisted if our baby took a dump in someone's pool. Who knows how many heatwaves we'll get this summer? This is no time to make enemies!

Step 3: Visit Granny
My grandmother called me earlier today to see if I would be interested in having supper with her in her apartment in the fully air conditioned retirement complex. Would I? I packed up the baby and away we went. By the time we reached Granny's place, the car was finally cooled down.

We had a great time catching up on the latest news. Then she pulled out the photo album and we compared Marshall's mug to the baby pictures of my mom, aunt and uncle. Maybe all babies just look like alike, but I was able to see a bit of my kid in each black-and-white baby face. And then we sat down to the ultimate of suppers: hot dogs, coleslaw and vanilla ice cream with butterscotch drizzled on top. And, because my Granny said we were worth it, we uncorked a bottle of Beaujolais. Perfection.


And now, I am recapping our week of tolerating the heat in our stuffy living room. My laptop is uncomfortably hot, like a fat, sweaty lap dog. The leather couch isn't all that appealing under my short shorts. The weatherman swears the heatwave will finally break sometime tomorrow. I'll believe it when I hear the thunder clap.

Until then, I'll just keep listening to the drone of our little air conditioner.

Stay cool.

Growing Pains

Warning: the topic of this blog entry is boobies. And no, I'm not writing about naughty magazine boobies. I'm talking new mama boobies.

Three weeks ago, Jon and I had our first extended period away from our little guy. And by extended period, I mean from 2 pm until my bedtime. We were celebrating the marriage of our two great friends Katherine and Sacha. My parents had offered to drive down to our place for the weekend to watch over their angelic little grandson. Free babysitting from Granny and Grandpa? Who could say no?

Leading up to that weekend, I was dreaming about what I would do with my night off Mom duty. My cousin and sister-in-law were over for lunch one day when I sighed, "You know what I miss? A real fishbowl full of wine."

My cousin, pregnant with her third little one, set me straight. "Sure, you can have a night off and have a few drinks, but remember that at some time during the night, someone may need you and only you." I assumed she wasn't talking about Jon.

So, the week before the wedding, along with printing up the wedding programs for Kat and Sach, shining Jon's shoes and practising walking in my heels, I was on a mission to expel enough milk to satisfy my boy's thirst while I was away from the house. Funny, a few weeks earlier, I had seen an episode of The Office where Kevin the accountant cries like a baby in front of new mom Pam. According to him, after a new mother hears a baby crying, "her you-know-whats fill up with you-know-what, and then her shirt gets all you-know-what." Click here to see the video clip if you want to laugh.

Well, you know what? Just as I was about to give up on pumping out a measly amount of milk while Marshall was sleeping, I heard a baby cry from down the street. All of a sudden, the floodgates opened and I was in the milk business. So, thank you, Kevin the accountant.

Fast-forward to the wedding day. The groom looked handsome, with just the right amount of nervous. The bride was gorgeous. And by 5 pm, that feeling welling up in my chest was more than just pride. "Oh my God, my boobs are getting big," I whispered to Jon.

"Ya, I noticed," he replied, moving his eyebrows in a hubba hubba kind of way.

After a "just checking in" phone call to my folks, it was on to the reception. New Mama decided to celebrate with a gin-and-tonic. And then a glass of white wine. And then, of course, a glass of champagne to toast the new couple. By then, it was around 8 pm and supper had not yet been served. The guests at my table were aware of the fact that I had planned on enjoying my night off to the fullest. When they saw me reaching for the water, they must have thought that my year-and-a-half out of commission had made me a lightweight with the booze. But in all honesty, I was feeling ill.

Really? Could I no longer tolerate the alcohol? Had it been that long?

Ugh, the room started to get unbearably cold. My bones began to ache. I was feeling so tired. I could sense that the others at my table had noticed my drop in enthusiasm. And then, I looked down at my bulging cleavage. Mother-of-God.

I was pretty sure that I had a case of mastitis, otherwise known as "milk fever."

"Can't you ... I don't know ... get rid of it?" Jon asked when I discreetly informed him of my condition.

"Where? How?" I asked, frazzled. With my luck, I'd manage to muck up my cocktail dress. And where exactly would I get rid of the milk backup in a public restroom? I wasn't about to bend over the sinks, and I certainly wasn't going to aim my breasts towards the toilet bowl.

I was looking pathetic sitting at the empty table with my husband's jacket draped over my shoulders while the other guests danced the night away. The groom kindly asked the waiter to bring me an extra-large slice of wedding cake. When that didn't do the trick (not surprising, really!), the maid of honour slipped me a Tylenol. That proved to be more successful.

By 11 pm, I was a new woman. "I'm back!" I valiantly announced to my table mates. Off came Jon's jacket. I grabbed my husband by the hand and dragged him onto the dance floor. It was probably while I was playing air guitar to AC/DC's You Shook Me All Night Long that my frantic parents attempted to reach me on my cell phone.

I got the phone message twenty minutes later and quickly punched in their number.

My exhausted father: "He's asleep."
Me: "How long had he been crying for?"
My exhausted father: "You don't want to know."
My exhausted mother: "We tried everything. All he wanted was his mama. When I showed him his GloWorm, Marshall's eyes lit up. When he tried sucking on the GloWorm's face and realized it wasn't your boob, he really lost it. That's when we called you."
Deflated me: "We're on our way."

We said our goodbyes. The groom gave me the biggest bear hug, prompting me to pray that I wouldn't explode on the both of us. Due to my measly consumption of booze, I was the designated driver. Hmph. It was while rolling on the highway back to suburbia that I pieced my night and my son's night together. We probably both began to feel uncomfortable at the same time. And we probably hit our peak of unbearable at about the same time, too. When my Tylenol finally took effect, Marshall was probably finally overcome by sleep.

It was our first night apart, and Marshall and I were both miserable. My cousin was right: At a certain time of the night, my kid wanted me and only me. And when 4 am rolled around and my little guy cried crankily from his crib, my guilt--and a whole lotta milk--went away when Marshall was breastfed and rocked back to sleep.

So, our first big night out didn't go as expected. It could have gone better. But I have to admit that I will never fill in that cocktail dress as well as I did that night.

Home At Last

Jon and I are going to the bank today. We are going to reopen our mortgage and get the ball rolling on officially buying my parents' house, mortgage payments, school taxes and all. My dad (like many dads, I'm sure) has "strongly suggested" (the way dads do) that we secure our mortgage before rates skyrocket.

I am curious to finally meet our new mortgage consultant face-to-face. We've had numerous conversations over the phone since selling our condo back in the fall. During our first chat, I thought she was pretty gung ho to be at the office when she clearly had dentistry issues. Her voice sounded like she had a mouth full of gauze, or sedatives. Call after call to the bank and without any improvement to her tone, it became apparent to me that she did not have any dental work done at all. She really does talk like someone with a mouth full of marbles.

Last week, when I called to announce that we were ready to reopen our mortgage and claim the eleven grand in penalty fees that the bank so heartlessly withheld from us, she asked some routine questions like, "Whad ith your cuwwent wowking thatuth?"

"Well, I am self-employed, but I'm on maternity leave with my baby. And my husband just started his own business." On the other end of the phone I heard what I can only describe as the sound of our chances of securing a mortgage going down the toilet.

"Mhm," she replied.

Two years ago, I managed to secure our condo's mortgage on my own with my meagre publishing salary. This time around, Jon and I will both be signing our lives away to the bank and both our incomes have improved since then. However, the economic climate has changed significantly over these past two years. Without the backing of an employer, will we be able to get what we hope to get?

We do plan on playing our wild card: we're bringing the baby along. If our consultant is on the fence about giving us a mortgage for the amount we need, we hope that Marshall's smile will help sway her decision, like a new puppy or a kitten might.

We only hope she isn't allergic to babies. And that the baby doesn't spit up or poop on her.

"When I was your age..."

"What in our youth were we deprived of that kids of today might take for granted?"

My grandmother saw a lot in her long life. She raised some of her children in a house without electricity or running water. Food was kept cold in a hole in a nearby creek on warm days. Preserves were pickled and jarred for the winter months. My grandfather hunted deer to give the family a supply of meat. By the time my father--the youngest--came along, electricity and plumbing ran through the house and an automobile was parked in the yard. However, Dad attended a two-room school house until he was a young teenager. He had to hold the antenna to get a clear enough picture of the hockey game on the black-and-white television set. Before my grandmother passed away, she had witnessed such domestic innovations as the vacuum cleaner, the washer-dryer, Jell-O, Windex and the microwave oven.

As I watch my little boy nod off in his Fisher Price electric swing, I wonder what of my generation will he look back and marvel at when he grows up? What in our youth were we deprived of that kids of today might take for granted?

I don't know about you, but I think I had a pretty good childhood. I grew up in a peaceful neighbourhood with plenty of parks to play in, a wooded area to build forts in, a backyard to chase the dog in and an above-ground pool to splash about in. As my sister, brother and I got older, we were lucky to get a Nintendo gaming system from Santa Claus, complete with Super Mario Bros., Duck Hunt, Paper Boy and Tetris. We blew into the cartridges or wedged them into place when they didn't function properly in the machine. Sometimes we'd give the machine a good whack when it wasn't behaving, followed by a carefully timed sequence of mashing down the power button. We struck gold the day Dad came home from the flea market with a cartridge containing 96 games in one. Who cares if 25 per cent of the games were in a foreign language? I don't think we ever grasped the rules to Mahjong.

My dad gave me his first work computer when his company provided him with an upgraded one. It was a "portable" Kaypro II. It weighed a ton. It held two floppy disks. The green-on-black screen was tiny. You could knock someone out with the massive keyboard. I loved it. We fought over who got to play the next round of Space Invaders; I also wrote my first short stories on it and proudly printed them off on Dad's dot matrix printer. Ah, don't you remember the shrill sound of the dot matrix? Dad would have to print off two hours' worth of reports on some nights. The volume on the television set would get progressively louder and louder as the pile of accordion-folded pages grew and grew.

Television. Forget remote controls. I think my parents had children so that we could change the channel for them. One of us would have to reluctantly get out of our seat, pound the two-digit channel onto the calculator-like grid of the wood-encased colour TV, and usually have our prime spot next to Mom stolen by one of the other siblings. At least our folks didn't make us hold the antenna if the picture was fuzzy. We had an outdoor antenna that towered over the roof of the house. Dad had rigged up an indoor rotor that spun the antenna in any direction to get the best signal. We weren't allowed to touch that. God only knows what it looked like from outside when we did get our hands on it. I can imagine it rotating 720 degrees one way, 90 degrees the other way, and then another 360 degrees. At a relatively high speed.

I remember the summer our town finally got cable television. I was thirteen. Prior to that, I had made friends with the new girl in school who lived up the street. We went on bike rides, lounged in the pool, played our cassette tapes. Our friendship fizzled out as soon as she discovered MusiquePlus. We spent a few days in her air-conditioned house watching a constant loop of music videos in silence. Eventually, I knew I didn't have a chance, so I quietly left her living room.

And then I discovered music! And mix tapes--real mix tapes on actual cassettes. I listened religiously to the radio, my finger pressed down on the "pause" button, until my song came on the air. I hummed along, proud of myself for capturing the very first note of the song. And then, with fifteen seconds left to go, I cursed the damn DJ for getting on the air prematurely to announce the latest bloody contest. My mix tape perfection was ruined.

I cried the day 990 Hits stopped playing Top 40 and became an oldies station. What were we going to listen to now on the AM-only radio in my mother's Chevette?

When I got older, I used to tape the late-night college radio shows to hear new sounds that not even MusiquePlus played yet. That's how I discovered the Smashing Pumpkins. I couldn't help but smile the day I overheard one of the cool kids on the bus say, "Have you heard that song Today by the Smashing Pumpkins?" to which his friends grunted, "No." I was ahead of the game, musically! I thought. Don't worry, cool kid. They'll catch on one day. I was on to the next band by the time the Pumpkins released that shit double album.

This blog post could go on for days, now that I think of it. I only touched on a fraction of the technological changes we've seen in our generation. I haven't even uttered the "I" word, yet. The Internet--which became a part of our household in 1998--really has changed everything. With the Internet, how will my son write a class project? How will he make friends? How will he feel, considering I have shared photos of and anecdotes about him to friends and complete strangers alike--to masses of people--without his consent? Ugh, my head hurts just thinking about it.

It has been one hour since I began writing this blog entry. My baby is still sound asleep in his Fisher Price electric swing. Back in my day, my mother would have had to wind up the hand-crank swing a handful of times, risking waking me up with each turn of the handle.

Well, thank goodness for change.