I’m a writer. And as is typical of a writer, I have an active imagination. It whirls and swirls and comes up with all sorts of fantasmagoric outcomes for mundane activities.

I made a baloney sandwich. What if at school my son takes the baloney out, puts it over his face and poked holes so he can see through it. Then the teacher sees him and he gets in trouble and I have to go down there and we get in an argument and then I tell her what I REALLY think and then she gets mad and smacks me and I have to call the police for assault and…

 Yeah, my life is one big episode of 24. Really.

But my brain really and truly goes off on tangents. Like it’s got a mind of its own, ha!

Except some days I want to turn it off. Somedays. Like today.

Because today, this is the cover of the Calgary Sun. 

And my brain cannot stop coming up with ways this could happen; what events took place; what did that home sound like? What about when it was all over and all that was to be heard was the crying of that poor, poor baby?

I cry when I read about police and EMS responders crying. But my brain - my infernal, stupid brain - asks what the scene looked like, what it smelled like, what horrible sights there were to see.

I’m not being snoopy, I’m not sadistically wishing I were there, I’m not thinking anything other than how sad the entire situation is.

It tells me that I could go adopt that poor baby and raise her, that I could cuddle and love her just like I do for my own children. It tells me that I would never, ever tell her what happened. Not once. She could find out after I’m gone from some well-meaning (but stupid) family member who wants her to know the truth.

And then she could write her own book about what it’s like to be her.

But my brain, it just doesn’t shut off some days.

I’m a little bit of a hoarder. I admit it. I have my books stacked and piled around me, they are just part of me. I can’t imagine giving them up. I can imagine giving up clothes that have hung in my closed for four years, waiting for my butt to shrink.

And my kids have toys that there is a snowball’s chance in hell of being played with again.

That’s why I was particularly happy to read Clearing Out The Toys by Jill Cooper in the Living on a Dime Newsletter. I realized it wasn’t just about stepping on broken toys while getting the baby a bottle in the middle of the night while you have to pee and teaching her a bad new word… but it’s about teaching the kids that too much stuff is too much stuff and it’s cluttering their lives. Free them up!

I think it’s the rain. The rain that has been the constant backdrop to life these past few days. I’m not used to so much rain. I live in Calgary, not Vancouver. Too much rain. Too, too, too much rain.

I couldn’t even go to church today. Mainly because I couldn’t gather the children to come with me because one didn’t come home from grandma’s and one was too tired.

Fine! Fine! Play at the park! You’ll be sorry in hell my child!! <- no, I didn’t really say that. (Mainly because it wasn’t my son’s choice, it was my mother’s, who let him go to the park rather than bring him home.) But there’s a reaction in my soul that says “why don’t they care?”

It’s selfish, really, and I see that. It’s selfish to say to your family, “Care more about me!” But I want them to. I want someone to read what I write, I want my husband to notice that it’s getting close to church time so why doesn’t he put the baby to bed and I can go, I want to feel the acceptance that I’ve craved since I was a child.

But everywhere I feel like I face rejection. I’m a writer, I can handle that rejection. I get it. But when your family rejects you or when it feels like there’s not so much rejection as just…. a non-acceptance. A feeling of ambivalence. I see clothing on the floor and I think “doesn’t anyone else care?” I see bedtimes approach and I start to prepare. Doesn’t anyone else?

Lately I’ve been trying very hard to stay on budget. I watch each penny I spend. I find little bits of joy in getting a lunch for under $2. (Superstore, it’s for me!) But then one offhand comment from a family member about my spending just crushes every bit of happiness I had. Every bit of try.

Why is that?

My son goes to before and after school care at the local rec centre. It has a pool, gym, play areas. He likes it. Twenty minutes before school starts, they load him and his classmates up on the bus and send him to school. He particularly likes it because he likes to ride the bus.

I guess a few weeks ago, he missed the bus. I don’t know how this happens because he’s there, they get the kids on the bus. Either they forgot about him, he was in the bathroom or the missed him - and he missed the bus. He’s on the last bus, so when it comes, all the kids left need to get on the bus.

He says to me today, “The other day I missed the bus and I went to school in Sandi’s red car.”

I guess the lady in charge of B&A care drove him to school.

“Did you have a booster seat?” I asked. And I ask this because he’s not the biggest kid. In fact, he’s small. Wee even. Short, not yet 40 lbs and he still rides in a five-point harness in my truck.

“No.”

I’ll admit. I saw red. How dare she take my child in a vehicle when he’s not properly buckled in!? He said it was a shoulder belt and I immediately had visions of him in a front seat with an airbag poised to take his head off when it deploys.

I’m mad. I’m mad because she should have just called, or had the bus take him later.

I know the bus has no seatbelts… but I was a bus driver for two years and kids are safer in a bus with no seatbelts than they are unproperly restrained in a car.

My immediate reaction is to call her and yell. Ok, that’s not a great idea.

Other reactions are to pull him out of B&A care next year and go with the set-up they have at school because it’s easier and there are no buses. Or to call her boss and explain my concern and explain why what she did was dangerous. Can you imagine the lawsuit if a child was injured or killed while being driven to school improperly restrained by someone who wasn’t supposed to be driving him in the first place?

What would you do?

Just like almost every other mother I know, I had ideas about what kind of mother I’d be… someday. It was easy to imagine myself volunteering at the PTA or in my son’s classroom. I’d be the mom who went on field trips and helped run the book sale. But as I held this daydream in my mind, my son was just learning to crawl and the PTA meetings were simply Things I’d Get To In Time.

Now he’s in Grade One, so this is our second year of school. I haven’t stepped foot inside the PTA; I haven’t made it to a field trip yet; and most of my visits are when the principal wants to have a little chat with me.

For the first little while, I thought I was totally flunking out of Good Mom School. I had lots of excuses. My daughter was three weeks old when my son started Kindergarten, we’d just moved into a new house. I had a book to write. Then I went back to work after maternity leave. Then I got a promotion. There just hasn’t been time.

And there was something else.

There were other moms there. Other moms who willingly stepped up to the plate. Other moms who had known each other since their kids were in preschool together. Other moms who had a heck of a lot more time on their hands and fewer kids and fewer bosses. So I let them do their thing.

But I’ll tell you, it didn’t win me any points on the playground. More than one conversation has been stilted when someone makes an offhand comment about how much volunteer time she’s putting in and how other moms should step up. Then, oh, someone realizes that they haven’t seen me volunteering. Chirp, chirp go the crickets.

The first day of kindergarten I sussed out the other moms. Oh look, that looks like Rich Mom in the Escalade and the perfect hair and ironed capris. Over there is Mother of Herd of Boys. She’s dressed in a track suit and is cuffing children upside the head. I don’t even think they are her kids. And then there’s Mom of Twins who is crying like she’s never had her kids out of her sight before. Then I spot Weird Mom. She fell off the fashion truck in 1987 and has a fanny pack.

And she’s headed my way.

As it turned out, we had lots in common. I got past the fanny pack (for all I know she could be carrying around an epi-pen and medication, who am I to judge?) and got to know her. Strangely enough, our kids became pretty good friends. We would trade playdates and have coffee. But gradually I realized that she was just masqurading as Weird Mom, she was really Super Mom. She had the best, most educational toys. She and her son had reasoned discussions about bed time and never fought. She asked, he listened. My son started having meltdowns when it was time to leave their house.

Once, he said that he wanted to live there. So I offered to let him move, but first he had to go home and say goodbye to his sister and step dad and grandma and grandpa. He went home, kissed everyone, said good-bye and waited by the door. Crap.

There was a parenting seminar being held at the nearest library and I asked Weird Mom Super Mom if she wanted to attend. She said sure. We sat through a very interesting discussion on discipline and alternatives. (There’s an alternative?) When it was over I said “Wow, I think I learned a lot in there!”

She said, “Oh man, that was great. That was just what I needed. Now I know that I really am doing everything right.”

I knew that was going to be the end of our little friendship. Call me callous and mean and judgmental… but I couldn’t do it any more. I couldn’t sit with Super Mom while she continued to outperform me. Perhaps I should have been striving to be more like her, but I was having enough trouble learning to be me.

It’s a year later, M is in grade one and we have our challenges. I don’t fight the parent battle any more. I realize that my spot is to be the parent of my child. I’m the one making the lunches at 11:30 pm and fighting my way out from under the plethora of field trip forms and school newsletters so I can figure out if tomorrow is Popcorn Day or the school musical. I’m the one cheering my son on as he learns to put a finger space between his words. The one keeping math fun and reading funner. It no longer matter so much what the other mothers think. It matters what my son thinks.

Did I ever care what other moms thought about my mom when I was going to school? Not at all. Didn’t care, didn’t matter. But it did matter that she helped teach me to read, that she cared about my performance, that she had lunch ready for me each day.

My spot isn’t at the PTA, it isn’t on field trips (though I still try find the time). It’s behind my son. Cheering him on.