Open letter to little nut brown hare(s).

My mother used to hold her hand up and say: like all my fingers are different, all my children are different. But I love you all the same.
Like time lapse photography, accelerate forward at warp speed... I don't love my two the same. Because they are not the same.
I love them each with a deep and vast love, sometimes quiet, sometimes screamingly loud. I feel myself to be profoundly connected to each, but differently. I realize this is a landmine I'm traversing, but I trust in my history with each of them. I've been there from the beginning; First to hold them, kiss them, love them blind. Each is becoming such a very interesting adult person. There is much in each that reflects both mother and father, though not in equal measure. Of course, the best is that which is entirely their very own.
At this point, I have ceased to referee, interject, defend or accuse. My goal is to one day stop sitting in judgement, or at least to pass judgement in a gentler, subtler way.
I have often said to have a sibling is to have the greatest gift parents can provide. It is the closest you will get to that blind love, beyond me. It will outlive me (I pray), and survive their whole lives. It will be theirs alone, always. It will be in a different pocket,apart from spouses, or whatever else life can bring, joy or grief, like a twenty dollar bill you forgot you always keep for emergencies.

So its not about questioning my love or devotion or loyalty to one or the other. That's as certain as breathing for me. They have that, and each other, too.

Get your own sandwich!

Remember that TV commercial for Subway sandwiches where one guy would have the most beautiful sandwich starting from the inside out? It was just perfectly assembled, lovely and sweet, and you just knew he had been thinking about it alot. Remember how he knew it couldn't last forever, and he just wanted to savour it? And remember how the second guy comes along, sees this most perfect sandwich and immediately starts angling for it to become his?

So I'm thinking our almost adult kids and their very adult relationships inspire the same response in parents. That is, they did in my house. About 6 months ago BGC starting getting serious with her handsome frog prince. Recently, DH, who unabashedly and genuinely really likes the hfp, started feeling pangs not unlike the first guy in the Subway sandwich ad. As in, get your own sandwich! He wanted to bring down a protective veil around her, and try as he might, sometimes he just felt like sticking out his elbows and growling. Mano a mano, they were brohimes. But sometimes, when it was just us taking stock of our lives in the cosmos, DH admitted it was hard letting go.

I felt the same way with #1 son and girlfriends. Of course, all I want for our kids is for them to move into their own lives with confidence and optimism and boundless curiosity. I want them to think about their feelings, unspool them and and turn them over.

Displaced? Moi? Forced to take to the backround, blend in with the leaves, not be the sparkle?
I am reminded of another couple.
Miss Piggy: There can never be another moi.
Kermie: Ah Piggy....It's not easy being green.

Oh no you di'int!

If this is Tuesday, it's spin class day.
The Tuesday noon class is taught by instructor extraordinaire, complete with dreeeeamy South African accent. This week, however, Mr. Woonderbaar was away. His replacement was more like Liberace than Lance Armstrong. He was kinda short, kinda cute, and kinda... well...girly. He was, I think Filipino. The microphone amplified his accent, and an unfortunate lisp made following his rapid fire instructions just a wee bit more difficult, though alot more fun: Thpinners, increase rethithtance, thlow and thteady, and puuuuth through the pain!!!!
He had short spiky hair coloured steely grey, more of a fashion accessory judging by his unlined baby face. He wore a coordinating outfit in vivid yellow Lycra, in ladies sized medium. Yes, he told us. He said it thowed his thape the betht. Actually.

But here's the best part: 5 minutes into it, it was clear this was the best put together, most fun and by far most challenging class this veteran gym rat has ever taken.

So there I am, eyes closed, panting and puthing, when in sashays Miss I'm Too Sexy For Your Partay. Red hair a-swaying, purple bell bottoms just barely covering her southern cleavage, and a face that's all injectables. I have seen her about two hundred times in various classes and have observed one constant. She only speaks to those who have a penis. To everyone else, she is mute.

She is late. The class is past the warm-up, and well into a first set of intervals designed to separate the fittest from the mere mortals. She smiles, sashays over to her bike, taking the time to greet all the men in her row by first name. Her bike is directly behind me.

Less than one minute later, she surpasses her own previous record on the chutzpuh meter.She announces that this is not the regular instructor (thank you Sherlock)and where is Mr. Wuunderbaar?? And what was he thinking not to have forcasted his absence due to illness at last week's class? And, she demanded, who was this funny looking little man??(Funny looking little biaatch is what she really said).

Since she was surrounded by a small harem on all sides, this diatribe was directed to the nearest male thyclist, sitting two bikes over. And all delivered at a volume to be heard above Lady Gaga and her Love Games.

Mercifully the Lycra banana kept on going, oblivious to Miss I'm Too Sexy.
Was I the only plebeian gobsmacked by the goings on in the outskirts of Marginalia? And as if on cue, Donna Summer came blasting through the sound system at full volume, commanding: Go on now, go. Walk through that door. Don't you know that your not welcome anymore!

I'm down with that, she announced. Then she left, sashaying out just as she arrived.

She is woman, hear her purr.

The strongest woman I know has no big muscles, is on no athletic team, has never competed in a sport. She's the strongest, toughest feline in the cat box - and she calls me mom.
Yes...attention Walmart shoppers, she's my treasured daughter, beloved girl child.

And what is it about BGC that has demonstrated backbone beyond compare? At the tenderest, most vulnerable age she made difficult, life changing decisions. The ones that take your young life down a different path. She made them alone, all alone, and far from home. She endured a dark, long, tough patch that would have broken many adults with adult resources, skill sets and experience. And she wasn't yet old enough to order a beer to drown her sorrow.
Day after day, month after month, her feet hit the floor, and she pulled herself together to work through another day. She never folded, never quit school, never defaulted to crutches she would live to regret: no binge drinking, no drugs, no bad boy mistakes. She became thoughtful, analytical, insightful. With introspection came growth, then hope and optimism.
My princess is making her own happily ever after, as a work in progress, complete with handsome frog.

A joy to be with. A joy to live with. That is my beloved girl child.

Oh yes, Mr. Wolfe; You can go home again.

In a few days #1 son will be returning home for March break. This will be preceded by the typical minimum standard of culinary preparation he is accustomed to upon his return: brownies, his personal signature favourite; cookies, several dozen, of at least two varieties; muffins, baked in advance and frozen, so a different variety can be warmed a la moment in case the craving hits; brisket, made a day in advance and served on arrival- au point; a variety of legumes, to act as non-meat protein alternatives, for mid afternoon snacking which will be consumed on an as needed basis; all washed down with a boutique brew or three, local brewmasters preferred.

This prattle poorly disguises the undeniable glee that surrounds his imminent return. It's a sentimental one for him I suspect: it being his last one as a university undergraduate. When he returns again in a couple of months it will be as a university graduate. That's a scary crucible of expectations for him. That's an off ramp of sorts for me.
I am looking forward to an evolving relationship with an evolving adult. He has, of course, changed in four years. I'm not sure I've changed enough to keep up.

Since he will be back in the fold for at least the next year, we will have a chance to create the ebb and flow that is the dialogue of relationship. To quote Katsumoto from The Last Samurai: (read in heavily accented Japanese accent) He, will introduce himself. I, will introduce myself. We have conversation.
It will stand on the shoulders of twenty one years with the dearest, finest son a mother could dream of.

Stay tuned for tales of the girl child.

Ricky, YOU'VE got the esplainin' to do!

It started as we were loading the dishwasher after dinner. Mir, said DH, since our expenses will really nosedive next year, I really think we should get on with planning a Christmas holiday. Then the magic words he knew would seal the deal: with the kids, of course. Sly old fox, my DH. He knows that time away with them, particularly when we have spirited them off to another continent, is a no brainer. Now throw in a gorgeous beach, beautiful weather, fancy private condo, all on a swanky island in the Caribbean....while the rest of Toronto digs out and shivers....and I remember why I married this guy. I like how he rolls.
OK. I'm in. But. I remind him the back deck is sinking a few more inches every year. I don't care, says he. And it's listing at about a 30 degree angle towards the house. I still don't care, says he. And the stain is peeling. Don't look, says he. And it looks like a condemned slummy parasitic appendage that was mistakenly plopped between our lovely home and the swimming pool. Cue the violins here. BOOOHOOOOhooo. Yes, I recognize this would fall under white girl problems.

But are we missing the bigger picture? He works. He earns. He decides. End of story. Or is it?

When we married, we each had paychecks, bank accounts, Visa cards, and nice taste. Now we still each have all the above, but since only one of us is financially remunerated, does that mean he also has veto power? I gave up my job, I did not have a lobotomy!
So I suggest he think it over. OK, says he. I did. And I think we are not doing the deck. I suggest he think it over some more...say...until he thinks he agrees with me about re-doing the deck. OK, says he, you know I always end up agreeing with you; All you have to do is see it my way. Stay tuned.

Oh child, do not do as I have done.

So mom, when did you first do it? Insert here: get blind drunk, smoke a joint, have sex. Pick your vice, it matters not. They are all equally cringe inducing. If your age appropriate child has never lobbed one of these at you, stop reading this now. Go find said child, and start talking. Talk about anything and keep talking for the next five years or so. You're not in Kansas anymore Dororthy!
Just keep talking. That has been my mantra raising my own two kids. We have had rough spots, for sure. There are lots of times they don't listen, there are probably lots more times when they have felt I have not heard. They would not be wrong. But when it comes to the stuff that can be a game changer, I believe they know we are tied together at the ankles like in a three legged race. They are not alone. If one goes down, we both do. So, I'm right there, making sure we both make it to the finish line of adulthood.
I think the details of my own questionably sordid decisions from my youth are less important than the perspective I can imbue them with when viewed through the fog of middle age. I rode in a car before seat belts were legislated does not transcribe as: odds are it'll turn out OK.
I made some poor decisions, did some stupid things, yet dumb blind good luck got me miraculously across to the other side. But this is not small town 1975.
I have lectured on the perils of unsafe sex, described the cellular damage to the liver of binge drinking, and cautioned on the long term effects of smoking dope on the brain's grey matter. They hear: yaddayaddayadda. I think that's what they hear. But I keep talking. They sing my words back to me: dope is for dopes. Hahaha.
I hold my breath and hope that luck is holding.