We went to a wedding at a church on Saturday.
In the car, on the way to the reception,
Colum yelled out, “Oh no!
I wanted to ask Dad to show me how J – j – j …
You know …
Who is she?
The one who came back to life on Easter?”
“Jesus?”
“Yes, I wanted Dad to show me how J – j – jessas died.”
“Jesus.”
“Yeah, her.”
“Jesus is a man.”
“Really?”
“Yes, it’s just that he’s usually depicted with long hair. He’s also known as the Son of God.”
“Oh …”
I’m glad we had that talk before he starts Catholic school next week.
SNACK
Some people get stung by a wasp and they shrug it off.
I’ve seen it.
I am not one of those people.
We got take out burritos for dinner,
And were going to zip down to the lake shore to eat them.
I turned south onto a side street and with my right hand pulled my hair back out of my face.
Then I screamed,
Bloody murder.
I slammed on the breaks and looked at my hand.
There was some sort of stinger at the base of my ring finger.
I pulled it out and flung it out the open window.
“Was it a bee?! Was it a bee?! Oh my god, IS IT STILL IN MY HAIR?!”
I put the car in park so I could make my escape.
Before I could, though,
My husband said, “Yes it is!”
And he started swatting at my head with a fistful of paper napkins.
“Where is it now?!”
“I don’t know. Get out of the car!”
I was already on it.
I swung the car door open all the way and ran over to the sidewalk,
Where I proceeded to shake out my hair,
And then drop to my knees screaming and crying.
Because it HURT.
Also, I don’t know if I’ve ever been stung by a bee before (or was it a wasp?),
And what if I’m allergic,
And wasn’t my whole hand swelling up now?
And was that the tingling sensation of death running up my arm?
I was flailing.
Traffic was now backed up on this sleepy side street,
Because of course I stopped the car right in the middle of the road,
And the driver’s door was still wide open.
I got myself together enough to get back in the car and pull away.
Soon the pain started to subside,
And I turned to my husband and said,
“Did you really have to throw all the napkins out the window?
What are we going to use for the burritos now?”
SNACK
(formerly known as Daily Snack, but now less daily)
We bought a run down dump of a 100-year-old house.
The walls were a special shade of hospital green meets 50 years worth of cigarette smoke.
Add hordes of stray cats peeing all over the place,
And you start to get an idea of how it smelled.
Also, no kitchen on the main floor, two layers of vinyl tile over hardwood on the second,
And waist-high weeds covering the property.
Believe it or not, it was not abandoned.
There were people paying rent to live here.
But good bones, you know?
Refinish the upstairs floor, wash and paint the walls, do some weeding,
Put in a kitchen,
And voila!
It’s only slightly dumpy.
But sitting near the dining room now,
I notice the window sill has been finished with random strips of ill-fitting molding.
Really, what is up with THAT?
DAILY SNACK
Irene is now the same age Colum was when she was conceived.
It makes sense.
She has been waking up and playing with her baby dolls.
She sits on the couch and “reads”.
She does a lot of cooking on her play stove.
She fights with her brother,
And sometimes she wins.
She is more girl than baby now.
And she needs me less.
I’m getting so much done!
So it makes sense,
That at 21 months of age,
You might start thinking about another baby.
And, no, I’m definitely NOT pregnant.
DAILY SNACK
There was a little graduation ceremony,
Replete with a three-song performance,
For Colum’s two-week-long kindergarten readiness program.
He’d been practicing these call-back songs for days.
In the car he started to sing them again.
But this time he got Irene to echo every line.
“With their hands in their pockets,”
“Anns in pockis”
“And their pockets in their pants,”
“And pockis in panz,”
“All the little fishies doing the hootchie kootchie dance.”
“Fissies do kootzy kootzy dense.”
It was pretty much the cutest thing I’ve ever heard.
DAILY SNACK
Emma Waverman told me not to take the kids shopping.
***
I needed a new pair of jeans,
And there was simply no way I could maneuver the stroller
Down the narrow aisle where the middling sizes were hanging.
So I parked the stroller near the end of the rack,
And told Colum to look in the mirror and make funny faces with his sister.
I edged my way to the middle of the row of pants,
And looked up to see my kids.
Okay.
One pair of dark wash jeans and another one size up to try on.
Got ‘em.
I look up and … no kids.
Okay, stay calm.
Colum probably just pushed the stroller around the corner.
“Colum. Colum. COLUM. COLLLLLUUUUUMMM!!!!”
As far as the eye can see,
Row upon row of racks of clothes.
They could be anywhere.
An employee tells me she saw them in the toy section.
I look around.
Where the hell is the toy section?
I am in the middle of the store and the toys are in the far corner.
How could they have gotten all the way over there?
I run over anyway and see other kids — not mine.
Now they could be anywhere.
I rush back to the middle of the store and now we’re playing by my rules.
“COLUM! COLUM!”
“I’M MISSING A FOUR YEAR OLD AND A ONE YEAR OLD IN A STROLLER!”
“HAS ANYONE SEEN MY KIDS?!”
The sales lady tells me to stay calm, we’ll find them.
Fuck you, I think, and push past her.
It’s not even that I’m panicking exactly.
Not yet, anyway.
It has still been under five minutes that they’ve been missing.
These are precautionary measures.
Because I dare you to make off with my kids while I’m yelling bloody murder in the middle of the store.
I dare you to walk out with a four year old and a one year old in a stroller when every other person knows they’re mine.
Immediately, another shopper calls out that they are in the toy section after all.
“I told you they were there,” chides the sales lady. “There was no need to panic.”
Oh, I’m sorry. Did I upset your customers with my MISSING CHILDREN?
But I say nothing.
***
The good news is that I didn’t leave with anything I hated after all.
DAILY SNACK
I am so sick of the life as a journey metaphor.
Aren’t you?
Every blog you read, every freaking reality show,
Promises to take you along on someone else’s journey.
Really? To where?
Oh, I see …
What they really mean is,
Indulge me while I vomit up all my emotions and insecurities,
And otherwise over share the minutiae of my daily life.
You know,
Like I sometimes do here despite myself.
But at least I won’t call it a journey.
DAILY SNACK
“Don’t run, Becky. Don’t run.”
I would try not to, I really would.
But then there was my very own Daddy waiting to take me home,
And I could see him standing there,
Arms outstretched.
Those arms were the safest and most secure place in the entire world.
So I ran despite myself.
***
“Now don’t run, Colum,” chides Glenda.
And I watch him carefully step one foot in front of the other,
Until he gets about half-way down the corridor.
“Mommy! Mommy!”
And he’s off running,
Right into my arms.
The way it was meant to be.
DAILY SNACK
My husband has a full-time job,
And he also picks up freelance work on the side.
I have a part-time job, a blog, and aspire to find the time to pitch freelance work on the side.
We recently moved into a house that needs a lot of work.
We have two children under five,
And NO child care.
Then there’s life.
There’s visiting family and friends,
And maybe even doing something ourselves as a family every once in a while.
The weekends become exalted oases of free time.
Forget free time — time to catch up on work that I care about,
Work that will never otherwise get done because it’s not screaming,
“Feed me now!”
So I do know that it’s unreasonable,
But when my work gets bumped,
Again,
In favour of my husband’s more pressing, higher paying,
Admittedly more important work,
And I’m left taking care of the kids and the housework for the sixth or seventh day that week,
It’s hard not to feel resentful.
A little bit.
DAILY SNACK
I once read something about women – mothers — undermining their identities by using images of their kids as their Facebook profile pictures.
There was a shred of truth to that, it seemed.
Where there once was the image of a young woman,
There is now a drooling baby, grinning toddler, or worse,
A pet.
I would like to defend, however, pictures of mothers with their children.
They could be saying that this is me now as a nurturing caregiver,
This is a representative shot from my daily life.
I suppose.
Or it could simply be the sad truth,
That very rarely does anybody take a picture of the mom.
They take pictures of the kids and sometimes,
Every once in a while,
The mom happens to be in the shot.
So when it comes to switching up your profile pic, it could simply be,
That those are the shots you have to work with.
Comments (0) 
Themocracy