I still smell him in my hair.....

Goodnight Moon

Tonight there was a super perigee moon, the first in 18 years. My kids and I have a little love affair with the moon, so after sunset we put on snowpants and coats and went out to find it. It was hidden on our street, but when we got around the corner to the top of the park, there it was, shining low over the playground equipment, bright and huge and yellow. The kids ran to the bottom of the park for a better look. Ben said that it looked like a big bubble, or a balloon. Naomi said it looked like a circle. My camera battery died after a couple of pics (dang, should have checked it this afternoon), but we were entranced.
I sat down on a bench and let the kids play for a while in the darkness, hiding in the shadows, sneaking up the slides and racing down them. I listened to their whoops and whisperings as the moon lit the cratered landscape of countless footprints on the soft snow of the afternoon, now lightly frozen in the night. So much beauty and happiness, and under it a gnawing sadness because I would have loved nothing better than to be watching it on that bench with another, someone who looked up into the sky tonight and whose first thought was to tell me about it, wishing that he was there to kiss me under that wonderful moon.
We walked up to the top of the park again and said bye to the moon. I looked at the kids yelling, "Goodnight Moon!" and I remembered that the next time a moon like this comes again they will be grown.
Then we had a really good howl and walked home. Goodnight moon, I love you.

I have reached the weepy stage of exhaustion. Something has to give, and it can't be me anymore. Universe, please give.

Good quote

"Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid."
— Albert Einstein

The hopes under my pillow

So, Naomi lost her first tooth yesterday. It's the bottom middle-right, and the left is already loose. I missed it, but I'm told that she was very excited and talked of nothing else the entire day. A great deal of attention and thought was given to how exactly to ensure the tooth's safe dispatch to the tooth fairy. She finally decided on a box within a box under her pillow. The twoonie received in payment was almost completely ignored - she was just relieved that the tooth was picked up.

It seems too soon. Ben is two years older and he just started to lose his teeth last year, but it's not about the timing. She's my baby and this means more than just a tooth under a pillow. I thought that I could find a way to write about my kids growing up that didn't sound cliche or overly sentimental, but I'm not having much luck.

I can't wait to find out what they will be like when they get older, I am so curious about who they will become, what they will be passionate about, who their friends will be, what they will accomplish.

But I don't want them to be any older than they are at this very moment, when everything is fun and people are all nice to them and they invent games and make up stories and laugh and sing with abandon and crawl into bed with me and cuddle up and tell me their dreams. At this moment they are perfect. They are not limited by anything.

I don't want them to lose this moment, this feeling of everything being possible. Faster than I can believe, I know that the spaces between parents and children appear and are filled with new interests and people and independence. It's what has to happen, parents move further back, taking on more distant supporting roles, guiding gently and hoping that the basic things that we teach them when they are so close are enough to help them make decisions that make them happy later on. Some days I'm proud of the job I'm doing, other days I feel like I'm failing.
But right now, they are still perfect and it's so easy to keep them safe and make them happy and fill them with confidence so they can create the beautiful things they do.

And I don't want that to come to an end, even though I know it has to.

things you eat when the kids aren't home

I found the best bread yesterday, I should never go to Akhavan hungry - the bread, stuffed grape leaves, hummus, smoked salmon, feta, almonds, yogurt = eclectic dinner. I wasn't surprised when I woke up from a nightmare involving purple trees that talk like Dame Edna.
Could not get a last-minute ticket for the MSO last night, truly bummed because I was looking forward to it. I needed some beautiful moments.

A simple request

my hero

You have ridden in on your white horse and saved me so many times.
And you were there again yesterday.
Your initials are scratched into my heart because the marker started to fade.
Thank you.
xox

Love letters

A friend just mentioned love notes, and it put me in mind to write one, or two...
Let's start with the easy one.

To my Ben and Naomi,
I cannot remember what I was like when you were not in my life. I do remember a time before I had you, I see the pictures, I tell the stories, but it is a memory without texture, a story lacking a focus, a purpose, and depth. You make me more, you make me want to be better, smarter, funnier, happier, so that I can give you more and teach you what life is supposed to be. I would be so much less me without you.
Love,
Momma

Haven't been able to write for a while. The ideas come into my head, sentences form, images appear, then as I sit to put it down it dissolves. Tonight I feel like something has to come out. I picked up Naomi at daycare today and there was a letter hanging over her hook, and the hooks of all the other children. It informed us that a wonderful teacher, Naomi's favorite teacher, and a woman I consider a friend has breast cancer and will be leaving tomorrow to start treatment. I read the first sentence and froze. I had just walked past her while she was putting on her coat and I had said a cheery hello. I returned to her and gave her a hug, told her I was here for anything she needed, and tried to put my happy face back on for Naomi as I shovelled her into her snowpants and coat to take her home. I had N give her a hug as well.

The letter said that Miss P had decided she didn't want the children to know about her illness, so when we got home I told N that Miss P was leaving on vacation and wouldn't be back until after summer was over. Then N sat down and made her a goodbye card. I wrote out what she wanted to say (paraphrasing a bit because she'd never have managed to get all she dictated on a card) and then she did a wonderful job of writing it out herself. She erased letters over and over because they weren't exactly right. I'm now cursing my perfection gene that I seem to have passed along.

Now the kids are in bed and I'm able to sit and think. I am so sad. Seeing P today on the verge of tears when I am used to seeing her so animated and happy was heart breaking. Knowing the sadness she must be feeling and everything that she has to go through tears at me and I cannot imagine a way to give her comfort. I can do nothing but cry and make food.

I don't want to start in on the "think about how lucky you are" sentiment, we all take a moment to think that. I'm thinking about the things that I should be saying and the things I should be doing to make the people I love and care about know how amazing they are and how I would do almost anything for them, and how to give more comfort to someone who needs a world of it right now.

Family - 2010

The part of my life that is always good and always right.

the rest of the holiday

I had this long description of Christmas, but it was boring, so here are the highlights:
Kids slept in until 7 Christmas Day! They were so excited that Santa had come and ripped open most of the presents before I had time to make coffee.



Ben - lego
Naomi - dolls
Me - watching my kids jumping up and down - Santa magic is the best magic


Pancakes
Park
Chicken dinner
Visit Steve
Supper, and FIREWORKS! The kids' first ones and they loved them.
Amazing day.



In between we went out to the townships for Christmas with my folks and I had a walk under a sky full of bright stars with only the sound of the snow crunching under my feet. New Years Eve was quiet, we went up to the mountain and walked up to the chalet and played. Dinner with Debbie, watching the ball drop.



New Years Day was a run in the rain - my first longer run in weeks, and it felt GREAT!
Now in clean out mode, and a bit of sedentary slouch. Work tomorrow.....gahhhhh.....

Eve

My folks are not coming into town for Christmas. Mom had to go in for some tests, and they have made her very tired and ill. I decided not to go down, I don't want my mom trying to clean her house or prepare a meal - if I tell her not to, she will do it anyway and it will be too much. So, it's disappointing, but we'll celebrate when she's feeling better. But what to do? There's no point in me doing a Christmas dinner because I'm the only one that will really eat any of it, so I decided retool Christmas. Thursday night we went to see Cirque Mecanics, a fun show at TOHU (great space!).



Today we hung out, played outside briefly, did a few groceries, then headed downtown for Chinese food. The kids were thrilled to be eating noodles in a restaurant and were pretty well behaved. Then we popped in the car and headed down to the Quartier des Spectacles to wander around the gorgeous snow globes. Along the way we also took in all the other Christmas lights downtown (not to be confused with the ones on SuperSexe).



We came home, got on pjs, watched Charlie Brown Christmas, put out Santa's treat and made sure he had enough room to get out of the fireplace, then read Night Before Christmas and to bed. New traditions are good.....
What a great day.

Joy

On Wednesday I was driving to work and realised how calm and happy I felt. Cards would not go out on time, things would not be cooked, the house would not be spotless before the holiday and that was ok. That bit of the holidays that I missed for so many years because I was always so rushed and stressed, arrived for the second year in a row. I call it the Grinch epiphany, the time when I remember that the people who love me are my gifts and they don't care if their cards are late or my house is a mess or the food is simple. Those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind. It's a shame that I only enter this calm pocket after stressing out for weeks.
Throughout the day my mood continued to lift, and by the end of the day I was floating with happy, vibrating from within with this indescribable giddiness. Last year I had to make myself stop and let it happen, but this year it came all on its own - remembering what is really important, that I love and am loved in this world. That is all that matters.

yes you, I love you :-)

I love EVERYONE! XOX

Things I meant to say

One of my friends stopped by today and over a cup of tea while we were getting caught up, told me that his sister had called to say that she had some bad news. He told me that his 15-year-old nephew had just been diagnosed with Aspergers. He indicated that the diagnosis was no surprise to him, and we talked about that. I automatically corrected about the term "bad", "Well, that not really bad news, just news", and we discussed the lack of resources briefly and his educational plans, and then moved on to another topic. He left, I took the kids out sledding, and then we came in and started some baking.

So I'm taking some cookies out of the oven, thinking about getting supper ready, and I look over at Ben, who is helping shell pistachio nuts with his sister. That's when it hit me.
If I'd been in a movie, there would have been that whooshing noise and some kind of blur special effect and then a flashback to me, almost five years ago, sitting in a metal chair in a small room at the Children's autism clinic. We'd just gone through days of tests with an array of doctors and PhD students. We'd been referred to the hospital by our pediatrician, and after an exam with audiology, we'd been sent to the clinic because they told us that even though they were sure it wasn't autism, it was the fastest place to get all the testing at once. I now believe that they tell parents that because they don't want you to bolt and not go ahead with the diagnosis.

So, sitting in the metal chair, watching Ben with the final assessor - the head psychologist - expecting that she was going to tell us that he wasn't autistic, just like the audiologist and our pediatrician and everyone else who had chimed in for months. But while Ben sat there creating a block tower, she turned to us and said, "So, Ben's autistic". There were words after that, sentences, paragraphs, but I don't remember any of that because at that moment the bottom fell out of my world.

That was the feeling that I relived in my kitchen tonight, that awful, stomach-twisting confirmation of what I didn't want to hear.

I know that on the grand scale of things it is not the tragedy of being told that your child is dying, or will suffer with a life of pain. I kept telling myself that over and over while what I was really thinking about was how he'd never have a neurotypical life. We all expect our kids to have at least our choices in life, if not more. We take for granted that they will have as much of a shot at education, relationships, careers, happiness, and fulfillment as we have. It is unbearably sad to suddenly think that their lives may be severely restricted. I used to stay awake at night thinking about the fact that Ben may never get married and have kids and a mortgage and a steady job. Honestly, sometimes I still do. But it doesn't terrify me like it used to.

Flash forward to me holding a sheet of cookies in my oven-mitted hand looking at Ben and I really did feel like the most insensitive person on the planet. Time, experience, education, and work have made me a person who no longer fears the spectrum and Ben's future. Part of me is so proud that I no longer see autism as a bad thing, just a difference, but there's no way I would have understood that five years ago. I understand the denial and the wishful thinking and the fears that we beat down and the lies we let ourselves believe because we so desperately want our kids to be "normal". The nephew's Aspergers may have seemed obvious to some, but to my friend's sister I'm sure it wasn't and I'm fairly certain that the bottom has just dropped out of her world.

I wish I'd been a bit more present today so I could have offered a kinder word and a warmer heart.

Moments of the morning

• Watching my son, bleary and pyjama-ed, walk into the pantry, grab the jar of peanut butter and a spoon, and head to the dining room.
  
• Listening to an improvised version of "All I Want for Christmas" substituting "cookies" for "teeth".
  
• Passing by my daughter's room and seeing her laying upside-down on the bed putting on her tights.
  
• My son's hat hair.
  
• The dance my daughter did for me in the window of the daycare.

Yeah, I was late for work, no, I don't really care.....

I am so in love with music right now....

Just finished listening to all six of Bach's Cello Suites performed by Jean-Guihen Queyras. His playing was marvelous - lively and crisp, playing that tore at my soul and then lifted it into the sky. I sat there in awe that anyone could store this much beauty in his head and bring it out from his fingertips. At the first break, Adriana turned to me and asked how anyone who is able to play something like that can get on with their day like a normal person. How many hundreds of hours of practise did it take to create so much wonderfulness that sang in my ears and thrilled me? I got out floating, wanting to hug the world and take it all into my heart.
It has been quite a week.

Ok.....

Admittedly, the snow is far less fun when I have to shovel out my car.
We just had our first storm yesterday - 15cm and gusting winds that created snow drifts over my knees in my front walk.

After work I headed down to Place des Arts and got a great last minute for the MSO. Bach, Brahms, and Bruckner. I almost didn't go, preferring to hibernate at home, but I parked underground to avoid any more car cleaning for the evening. The first half was lovely- but depressing if you knew what the contralto was singing, "O Tod, wie bitter bist du". Cheery. It ended with one of those Bach pieces that I hum a lot, Sleepers Awake. I rarely remember what it is, but it's catchy. The lady two seats over had on way too much perfume. The second half was Bruckner's ninth, unfinished. The second movement is very intense, emotional outbursts that then pivot into passages of calm. Nagano is so different from YNS, more controlling (but nothing like Dutoit was) and sometimes leaves the audience unsure of when it's ended.
Last Saturday I went to hear Bach's violin concertos and the Thursday before was a night of Bach and Ravel (with my lovely Yannick Nezet-Seguin). Tomorrow night is cello suites, I feel spoiled to have access to so much wonderful sound - it fills my ears and heart and gives me those moments of stillness and peace and awe that we all need to clear our psyches.



As usual, there are a few things on my mind. A few people in my life that I hold very close to my heart have given me some things to think about. I thought that I knew what makes me happy, but as events unfold, it seems that I do not know myself very well at all. I am surprised by where I find happiness and what that means about me and what I need. Perhaps what I am searching for is more of a state of grace within myself than a manifestation of it in another, and the patience, forgiveness, and understanding that I am slowly adopting (Rome wasn't built in a day people) is making it easier to love it all.