Grandma bought a new toy for Talia this weekend. This fancy-dancy exersaucer was the happiest place on earth on Sunday night. She gets to stand up and reach things and most importantly, get them to her mouth. Home is a sad, sad place to be all of a sudden.

Tonight, Grandma and Poppa came to practice putting Talia to bed. All fared well, and Talia is snoozing away happily. As was Poppa when I got home. At 8.

For the 2 hours, I took myself and a book out for sushi and a glass of white wine. It was probably lovely. Sadly, I was a bit distracted by being a mother who mostly wants her daughter to be fine with whichever circumstance she finds herself in, but also mostly wanting her to prefer that circumstance to be me. I phoned Scott at 7:30 so that I wouldn't phone mum. He humoured me, but pointed out that he has been leaving her with me for months now and is a bit used to the bitter-sweetness of that.

Which of course has me thinking. Thinking about how being a mother has opened a whole new world to me, and a much more different world than being a wife ever was. Thinking that the same is probably true for Scott being a father, but the world is not set up for him to think on that at all.

The book I'm reading (Between Interuptions) was given to me by Heidi and is a collection of women's writing about motherhood. This first section I'm in is about the difficulty of merging motherhood with previous identities and specifically work identities. Oddly, I found I couldn't relate much, perhaps because my "work" identity had been a bit of a joke for the last 3 years. But then a writer wrote about being her father, not being a mother to her children and about how lonely that was and oh my, I was sad. Sad because of what it means it must be like for so many fathers.

Ugh, this is boring. What I want to say about all this is that I am intensely grateful for the privilege of staying home with Talia. I am thankful to every Canadian tax payer that funds my employment insurance. I am thankful for the bureaucrats who wrote a billion reports to convince someone, somewhere that a full year with a parent at home was way better for children than just 6 months. I am thankful to Make-A-Wish for obeying the law and for being a mom-friendly workplace. But mostly I am thankful to Scott who has giving up days at home with his daughter to work extra days so that we can afford for me to make up words to half-remembered rhymes and blow raspberries in the middle of diaper changes and spend 12 minutes choosing an outfit. To check the mail in.

Motherhood is such a privilege, in every way, and I am so, so thankful.

She Needs Me! and other lies that are true

So when Katie saw this photo, she says the first thing she thought was "Gammi?" Is it the white "hair"? the fondness for baths? the fingers in the mouth? or maybe just a lovely, lovely face? I don't know but I sure liked looking for Gammi in my sweet daughter and finding a hint or two. Take that Johnson family! We got some Gourlay going on...

Yesterday, I spent the day at Karen's making antipasto. Or to be more accurate, I spent the day with Karen while she made antipasto. I did do some of the shopping and chopping and filled about 7 jars. I also tried to take a few jars out of the big pot of boiling canning water but managed to look dangerous enough to inspire Karen to take over. Meanwhile, Talia and I hung out and enjoyed the warmth and friendliness of Karen's house. It's nice to be in a spot where you're just fine the way you are. Very Grandma and Poppa-ish actually, now that I think of it. Goodness. What a grandparent retrospective this is turning into... I'll find a Pumpa connection before we're done, I swear.

Now, that preamble is getting us to my day's thinking. On the way home, sweet T. fell asleep in her little carseat. So nice. Until she woke up, somewhere around Boundary and 29th. Something about waking up in the carseat is very upsetting to Talia and she just cries and cries. I reach back and give her my hand (awkward in a stick-shift) and I tell her I'm right there, and still she cries and cries. Finally we get home, and as soon as she sees me coming around the car, she stops. Her sobbing slows and as I pull her out of her carseat and bring her to my shoulder, she tucks her head against my neck and does that ragged, snuffling, post-cry breathing.

It is SO nice.

This was really the first time where I thought, "I think it's me she needed." Probably she hasn't quite figured out that MY voice and MY fingers do not mean that *I* am there. So she wakes up in her seat and makes the sweet waking up noises she always does, but instead of Scott or me showing up to play, she gets nothin'! Nothing but the 2004 Jetta upholstery and a carseat toy. For those 20 minutes, she is sure that this is it - she's been abandoned and will have to raise herself and she has not seen a nipple in HOURS.

And then suddenly there is Mummy. ME! She sees ME and all is not lost after all.

So of course, I have to think on this, even while I am loving it. I see how it is addictive, this feeling. How we are made to be needed this way. It feels as though my entire body has been created to pull a warm, cuddly, sobbing body out of carseat and feel it relax against my shoulder. And I want to do it again. I want to be the answer, the solution.




As you can see in this photo, Talia is getting stronger all the time - she is holding herself up there, hanging off the bouncy chair (and breaking every safety guideline for it, I'm sure) all on her own strength. Probably, she will be able to sit on her own in the next months, and stand on her own not too long after that. And chances are, she will figure out that she is okay on her own in the carseat. She'll start being okay on her own with friends, and then at school and sooner or later at work and God forbid, in New Jersey.

And here she has me hooked on her being most okay with ME. I didn't think I would fall for it, but alas I have. Not long until I'm saying "She just hates daycare" while the teachers smirk knowing that she just does the crying for my sake. Maybe it's why grandparents love these little grandbabies so much - they get a hint of that again. It's been so many years since their own babies needed them for a cuddle and they've missed it. I do remember sitting on Pumpa's lap when I was small - while I was savouring the smell of rye and milk, I bet he was soaking up that "she needs ME" feeling. Nice to imagine, I tell you.


Lucky me.