In the Beginning.

To truly understand this new dad’s perspective on parenthood, it’s necessary to go back almost a year. You need to understand how my wife and I went from planning for a child to being the proud parents of a beautiful baby girl.

The first time I was awakened at 3 a.m. by the beeping of a thermometer was a clear sign that life was about to get very different for my wife and me. Bleary eyed, I looked over and gave my wife a quizzical look. “I’m charting,” she said. I groaned and drifted back to sleep.

Like most men, the idea of conceiving a child was exciting – who doesn’t get excited about the idea of sex. Foolish me, I thought it was that simple. That was until my wife began reading every book, magazine and Internet article on conception. Soon my wife was punctuating my days with all sorts of facts on just how difficult it is to get pregnant – thus the charting exercise.

Fortunately for us, we apparently managed to defy all odds and within a month my wife was pregnant. Hooray! No more daily facts on the fine and delicate art of insemination. No more charting. All we had to do now was get through the next nine months and, presto, we would have a child. Yes, I can hear all the parents, especially the moms, out there laughing at my naivety.

In all seriousness, the first three months of my wife’s pregnancy were fraught with angst and anxiety. I won’t go into the details, but our OB/GYN told us that he had some serious concerns and my wife was put on bed rest for six weeks. It was only after my wife was in her second trimester that the doctor told us he hadn’t expected the fetus to make it that far.

Speed up the clock to the due date, go time. Due date comes and goes with no baby. The next day it’s the same thing. Wash, rinse and repeat for two more weeks.

By this time, my wife is freaking out. Her daily mantra has become, “When is this baby going to come out?” My daily reaction: roll eyes, groan inwardly and bite tongue. Wash, rinse and repeat.

Mothers, I can hear you screaming at me, and I’m sure your words are none to kind. Before you start gathering up the pitchforks and torches, understand that my outward reaction and my inward reaction were completely opposite. During my wife’s pregnancy, while inwardly I was going crazy, outwardly I was doing everything I could to make sure my wife was as comfortable as possible. I digress.

Suddenly, the big day finally arrived! Actually, the big day took two days full of labour pains to finally arrive. But when it did and our baby girl came into this world, wow! I like to think of myself as a manly man. I eat red meat. I use power tools. I sometimes grunt to communicate. That veneer washed away in a sea of joyful tears the very moment I set eyes on my daughter.

It didn’t take long for me to recover my emotions and start thinking of the new reality I was facing. Dear Lord, I have a daughter. One day she’ll be a teenager. One day she’ll be dating. One day she might date a guy like me. Time to start stockpiling the guns and ammunition.

Photo Credit:

From Parenting Advice for New Mom and Dad

Guest Author Bio

Glen Plummer
Glen Plummer is an extraordinary civil servant for the Province of British Columbia. But, more than that he is devoted husband to our Guest Author Lara Perzoff and shell-shocked father to the lovely 7-month old Hannah. Glen is not fazed by much, is the person you want at your side when you’ve had terrible customer service and need to give someone a piece of your mind and he has the muscular physique of a stoic warrior. But, Hannah at 17lbs soaking wet reduces him to a puddle of mush. When he’s not working or hanging with his family, he can be found in only good coffee shops or in his kitchen cooking up something marvellous.

Parenthood: A New Dad’s Perspective is a post from: LIFE AS A HUMAN

My husband and I just received a quote for landscaping and masonry to completely overhaul our mess of a front yard. This quote, which is out of our price range, upset me and as a result I lay awake most of the night. And then today, while out walking, I remembered my first baby group meeting and the quote and our front yard slipped back into a part of my mind where they exist in a less grating way.

On our first baby group meeting, a box containing random objects was passed from Mom to Mom. We had to blindly reach into the box, pull out an object and tell the group what the object meant to us in our lives at this moment, now that we had babies.

I pulled out a packet of seeds. Dahlias. One of my favourite flowers. And it took me no time to think about what I was going to say to this group of complete strangers nursing or bouncing their babies.

To me, the packet of seeds was the perfect way to represent priorities.

About two and a half years ago, my husband and I bought a house that had been renovated by a contractor who failed to tell us he had encountered flooding in the basement during construction. The listing realtor also chose not to tell us about this problem. The proper home inspection didn’t suggest any problems with flooding. Had we known at the time of the sale there had been a water issue, we wouldn’t have bought the house. Oh well. Caveat emptor.

A little over a year later and one week before our wedding, we watered a flower bed and unexpectedly caused a flood in the basement. The result was disastrous. We had to evict our very likeable tenants from the rental suite and demolish the basement. Worse, the incident wasn’t covered by insurance. And, part of the remedy involved a bulldozer romping all over our front lawn to dig a deep trench around our house to replace the perimeter drains.

A year and a half later, our basement is a dusty construction zone and our front yard is a field of weeds worthy of a rough plywood sign spray-painted with “no dumping.”

This brings me back to that packet of seeds. I would be so happy to have a lush front lawn again and to plant those dahlias in beds of soft black earth in front of my house. I would love to see Hannah try to perfect her first steps in thick green grass this summer. My husband and I have pride. We would love to restore our house’s curb appeal.

But now that we have a sweet baby girl, the yard and the basement are less of a priority. Our little Hannah started out as a little seed and now our priority is to care for her so she will blossom and grow.

It was kismet that I pulled that packet of seeds from the box at baby group that day. In the face of the quote for the yard work, I am grateful for the reminder of what those seeds mean to me. I will continue to put my heart and soul into caring for Hannah unconditionally. To see our little seed turn into a beautiful flower would be my proudest achievement and will hopefully make our home—and this world a more beautiful place.

Photo Credits

“Untitled”  Flickr Creative Commons.  Some rights reserved by Chu❤

“Dahlia”  Flickr Creative Commons.  Some rights reserved by Carol Green

 Guest Author Bio

 Lara Perzoff

As a new Mom to five month old Hannah and fairly new wife of Glen, Lara is finding her legs at balancing between motherhood and family. Her family is her true love, inspiring her to write down the many words in her head, preferably when she has two free hands to type. Lara has a background in public relations and broadcast journalism and has always been passionate about creative writing. Besides family time, Lara loves hiking, running, photography, adventure travel, a good cup of coffee with friends and yoga.

The Packet of Seeds is a post from: LIFE AS A HUMAN

When I went to use the bathroom in the dead of last night, I stubbed my toe on the infant swing that has taken up residence in the washroom. Instead of cursing out loud—the last thing I want to do is wake six-month-old Hannah—I snickered to myself about how every room of our house has been taken over by some sort of plastic baby gear.

My snicker smacked of irony, because I remember telling my sister, back when I was deeply single and light years away from having children, that when the time came for me to have kids, I would NEVER have plastic, midi music making toys cluttering up my house, taking away from the adult décor. Back then I thought pots and pans could round out a baby’s simple toy selection, but if my husband found Hannah banging away at his (and I say “his” because he’s the head chef in this household) pots and pans, I’d probably find myself with one on my head and my husband beating it with a wooden spoon.

But now, the infant swing sits in the bathroom, there’s a baby gym in the home office, an exersaucer travels between the living room and the kitchen and the living room itself has been taken over by a Bumbo chair in a shade of blue not found in nature, a bassinet and a multicoloured foam play mat littered with toys of all shapes, sounds and sizes.

My sister raised a surprised eyebrow and clucked, “my, how things have changed!” when I excitedly showed her Hannah’s Christmas gift from my mother—a dizzying, noise-making, light flashing, over 50 midi musical tunes playing activity station which I tell my husband in jest that he’ll probably start a support group over (but I’m kind of serious).

You see, this “gear” is all part of what I’ve come to learn from other wise moms to be “baby rotation”—where you move baby from station to station during the day to keep them stimulated but to also gain yourself a good 15 minutes of “hands free” time. These days, I’m blown away by what I can accomplish in 15 minutes!

But really, the stimulation is the best part. There’s nothing quite like watching your baby learn new skills every day as they play with toys— whether they’re simple toys made of wood or the colourful plastic annoying musical variety.

Yes, things have definitely changed. Toys of all types are now part of my home décor. I can proudly say that our house has been fully “babyfied” and the gear I once swore I’d never own is now as welcome an addition to my home as is our sweet baby girl.

Guest Author Bio

Lara Perzoff
As a new Mom to five month old Hannah and fairly new wife of Glen, Lara is finding her legs at balancing between motherhood and family. Her family is her true love, inspiring her to write down the many words in her head, preferably when she has two free hands to type. Lara has a background in public relations and broadcast journalism and has always been passionate about creative writing. Besides family time, Lara loves hiking, running, photography, adventure travel, a good cup of coffee with friends and yoga.

Babyfied is a post from: LIFE AS A HUMAN

It’s really different here on the little piece of land that fell off the west coast of Canada. Different in a good way, like we can buy vegetables outside all year round and take the dog swimming in the ocean on New Year’s Day, and wherever we look we can be pretty much guaranteed to cast our eyes on something breathtaking in the way of scenery. But it’s also different in ways that make a mother’s guts get all knotty.

I’m not talking about how easy it is to buy high-grade organic marijuana or psychedelic mushrooms here in the world capital of pot and ‘shrooms. I think you can actually purchase them at most of our local farmers markets if you know what to ask for (which, for the record, I do not.)

Nor am I referring to the ever-present high alert we’re all on for THE BIG ONE, although it was a real eye-opener when I got a note home from school right after we moved here asking me to place some very specific items in a Ziploc bag and send it back with my child to be placed in the earthquake kiosk out in the playground. Oh, the thoughts that went through my head and the horrible feelings I felt, imagining that something geologically devastating would happen and our family would be separated. I think my son’s earthquake kit was the last one handed in because I couldn’t quite manage to draft the optional “comfort note” without melting down. I mean, what do you say to your child when all he wants and needs is the reassurance of a parent’s presence and there’s a split-wide-open fault line between you and him? A glib “Keep Calm and Carry On” stuffed into a freezer bag with a McHappy Toy and a granola bar ain’t gonna cut it.

No, the churn is to do with wild animals roaming the streets. I did hit this deer one time, on an ordinary weeknight while driving through a residential neighborhood minding my own business – this crazy leaping creature crazily leapt in front of the Impala (ironic, no?) and I nailed him pretty hard in the hindquarters (the last thing I saw before I closed my eyes and hammered the brake pedal).

But it’s not about the free-ranging ruminants. It’s the cougars roaming the streets of our city – that’s what’s giving this mom the heebie-jeebies. Five warnings in the last two days, the most recent being at the nearest intersection to the lads’ school. They’re bold, these urban cougars – wandering across the main highway, hanging out at the high school, loitering in the backyards of ordinary law-abiding citizens, quite possibly bumming cigarettes from some of the kids who hang out by the video store. Just for clarity (because the reference to approaching teenage boys may mislead the reader), I am not talking about big-haired divorced women with salon nails and pants that are a little too tight. I refer to the literal, actual large member of the cat family with massive deadly fangs and claws…

I don’t like it one little bit. My only consolation is that the warnings usually caution folks take extra care with their children and pets, and my children are a beefy 6′ and a fast-moving 6’4″. I did warn them to watch out for their more petite friends though. It doesn’t matter where you live: size matters.

Note: the deer lived. He was last seen limping off onto the adjacent golf course where, by the way, people golf every day all year round. Even in January. Even after a couple of big bong hits. Even with the ever-present threat of giant bloodthirsty felines lurking in the rough. I told you it was different here.

Photo Credits

Microsoft Office Clip Art Collection

First Posted At Life’s Rich Pageant

Guest Author Bio

Mary Meldrum
A transplanted prairie girl, Mary Meldrum is a mother, lover, sister, friend, daughter, singer, dieter and professional communicator, absolutely loving her new life as a mermaid on beautiful Vancouver Island.

A marketing copywriter by profession, Mary’s personal work offers an honest but lighthearted perspective on life as a middle-aged woman on the left coast of Canada in the 21st century: just trying to drink it all in, get it all done, shrink it down to size, and still get to bed by eleven.

Blog / Website: Life’s Rich Pageant

Follow Mary: Facebook  |  Twitter  |  Linkedin

Vancougar Island is a post from: LIFE AS A HUMAN

Life As A Human Likes is a feature of fascinating, enlightening, fun or perhaps just odd blogs and websites that enliven the experience of being human. 

It’s January and you’ve made a resolution to get out and exercise more, to eat right and to stop swearing in front of your kids.  But, it’s cold out, gets dark early, comfort foods are in season and somehow your kids are still interrupting you when you are trying to have a good session on the web…Below are some stellar parenting blogs that Life As A Human likes.

1.  Mommy Wants Vodka - Mommy Drinks Because You Cry

Becky Sherrick Hark’s blog is funny … except when it’s not.  One can log on with a big cup o’ java and have a good long read.  Laughing at posts like Cinnamon Girl and then tearing up at the poinant writings that describe Becky’s daughter who was born with a neural tube defect that required brain surgery to save her life.

2. Bad Mommy Moments ~ Celebrating the days of motherhood that SUCK.  Because it’s often after our worst moments that we realize how lucky we are.

The post f-ing lice is hilarious.

3. Leanne Shirtliffe ~ Ironic Mom - If you can’t laugh at yourself, laugh at your kids

In this very serious, noble and completlely daunting job of parenthood, most of us (?), many of us (?), a few of us, I hope (?) try desperately to swim upstream – defying pop culture – to teach our kids morals, values and respect.  It’s honestly a very had job.  Canadian blooger, Leanne Shirtliffe, writes about feminism, toys and how this sometimes flies in the face of environmental responsibility in this great post called International Women’s Day, Movies and Barbie Dolls.

4. stark. raving. mad. mommy - Losing my mind, one child at a time

“I write about the hilarious insanity that is my life.  This includes parenting, sensory processing disorder, anxiety, ADHD, allergies, asthma, Asperger Syndrome, and whatever else we have cooking at any given moment.” Babble named Josyln Gray number 76 out of 100 in the top 100 Mom Blogs for 2011.  She’s funny, insightful and quirky in that great way.  Just reading the description of her family members is enough to make you want to dive into some posts.  “My Excellent Birthday Adventure” is a must read.

5. Nerdy Apple

Sarah Manley has three kids.  And, one Halloween she did the unthinkable (please note sarcasm) when she ‘allowed’ her son to dress like Daphne from Scooby Doo.  The story itself is wonderful.  It is the flip side of the feminism coin that tells little girls they can play with trucks and celebrates their tom boy nature.  Only, it’s just not as OK to let a boy play with dolls and dress like a girl.  At least, not at the oh so mature age of 5.  Her honesty and unwavering support for her son landed her on “The Today Show,” CNN, NPR and blogs and newspapers around North America – at least.

6. Some Species Eat their Young ~ It’s an acquired taste.  Kick Ass Wife and I have four young children — Slim, Perpetual Motion, The Hellcat, and Tax Credit #4. I love them. They’re funny. Except when they’re not. Occasionally they make cool noises.

Chase McFadden is very funny and one of the only Father’s writing about parenthood that we’ve come across, which is a crying shame because when Dad’s write about parenthood there is a very unique and wonderful spin on things. How could there not be? And, he’s almost always very funny, except when he’s not and he writes about unspeakable things which every parent has to consider. Then he is wise, insightful and thought provoking.

Photo Credits

All thumbnails above come from the respective sites they point to.

Life As A Human Likes…8 is a post from: LIFE AS A HUMAN

Sitting on my balcony, enjoying the beautiful crisp morning, my meditation was interrupted by the sound of yelling. It was a female voice. I opened my eyes and saw a young boy carrying a garbage bag running ahead of the yelling sound.

Around the corner came the source of the shrill, angry voice. I heard another boy crying. The mother — the source of the yelling —wearing high heeled boots, skinny jeans and a blingy jacket, sounded monstrous to me. I could not imagine that the boy could take it without first breaking down and then tuning it out, as an emotional survival mechanism. It wasn’t even the tone or volume of her voice that made my heart beat faster, it was what she said, over and over again to the small child:

“Is it too much to ask that I have a good child? Can’t you be a good child?”

The mother came around the corner, cigarette hanging from her mouth, turned and roared down at her crying child that he simply was not good enough. For some reason, I thought of Santa looking down from the North Pole thinking, ‘Lady, that boy is getting a great present for Christmas, but you’re getting a lump of coal.’

My reaction surprised me. I focused not on my disgust for the situation, but on the higher voice in my head gently saying, “You need to be a better mother if you want the experience of a ‘better’ child.” With my ears and intention, from my unseen perch, I beamed this voice down to her but I dare say she was too angry to hear or absorb anything external.

They disappeared underneath the carport and I closed my eyes and prayed that the child hear my voice…“You are plenty good enough, you just need your role model to calm down and see it.”

Little man, carrying garbage while his mother treated him as such.

In the past, I might have yelled down at the mother something like, “Hey bitch! If you want a better child why don’t you try and be a better mother?! What do you think this is, a stop and swap? Get your act together!” Or worse, I would have run down and gone face to face, toe to toe, without a word, smacked some sense into her.

But instead, I felt compassion for her, as she quite obviously doesn’t understand. Lost in her anger at whatever, she literally cannot see beyond her own emotions; the feelings of those around her — which she affects so deeply — do not even register. She cannot see, while lost in her angry selfishness, that her children have no choice but to live in her home, do what she says, listen to her yelling and tolerate her anger. She cannot see that they are probably secretly wondering why other moms don’t act this way, or why they aren’t better children? Doubting themselves, when it’s quiet at night, perhaps wondering what they did wrong. This changes a child’s mind forever, this quiet constant doubting.

It’s tragic when we don’t see that it is not our children who are behaving poorly and ‘need to change’, but us. They are from us; discendents of us, extensions of us. They role model everything they see us do. They become exactly what they see in us. Simple as pie. If we think the people around us are ‘bad’, then we need to look in a mirror. Our perception of the external is a perfect projection of the internal.

So parents, if you want a ‘better’ child, be a better parent.

I will heed my mother’s voice and not interfere, but secretly, I want to gently tell her that her children are not bad. She is not bad; she just feels that way. Perhaps because, like many mothers, she feels like no one ever listens to her…no one cares or sees or hears our distress signals.

But people do see. They do hear. And they do care.

Photo Credits

Sad Boy  @ Blogspot

Love Thy Neighbour is a post from: LIFE AS A HUMAN

Guest Author Lara Perzoff is throwing off her rose tinted glasses, embracing her sense of humour, and exchanging her idyllic view of motherhood for something just a bit more grounded in reality 

It’s a beautiful morning in late October and as I am zipping around the house at warp speed to get things done, I am composing a thank you letter to Fisher Price in my head for inventing the infant swing, which has given me precious minutes of luxurious “hands-free” time while my four month old daughter naps.

To get things done… Simple things. Every day things. Things like laundry, emptying the dishwasher, making some breakfast (which usually gets eaten by lunch time with cold coffee), checking my e-mail and getting dressed. Some days, getting the simple things done is a monumental challenge, something I never saw coming when I was pregnant.

Don’t get me wrong. I love being a new mother. I wouldn’t give it up for the world. I am already counting down to the end of my maternity leave in dread of leaving my precious Hannah in daycare and returning to an insanely busy job which compared to mother work, is a walk in the park.

And as a new mom, I think I’m doing okay. Well, I think I’m doing better than I was in the first couple of months and I’m learning new things every day. That’s part of the beauty of my new life, my life that has changed forever. My life that has changed for the better.

But looking back to when I was pregnant, I have to chuckle at my rosy vision of motherhood. I recently had a good laugh over my idyllic view of motherhood with a friend whom I admire greatly for her ability as a mother of two little boys, and I kept repeating, “What was I thinking?” I’m sure she bit her tongue many times when the pregnant me excitedly prattled on about everything I would do with great ease once Hannah was born—I sure bite my tongue when my pregnant friends do this around me now!

We laughed about how I thought I’d be out of the hospital and onto the walking trails with my all-terrain stroller within days of giving birth. Regardless of my having had an emergency c-section and being painfully hobbled, something tells me these energetic stroller walks still wouldn’t have been possible so quickly.

Don’t even get me started on breastfeeding. Whatever tableau of a mother and child peacefully breastfeeding materialized in my head went up in flames. Let’s just say the experience got better after two painful and frustrating months and medication and leave it at that.

I’m not sure how I seemed to omit the fact that babies cry. Sure, I figured my baby would cry when she was hungry or needed a diaper change. But I never counted on the onset of crying jags from 5pm to 11pm around six weeks of age. I also never imagined my baby would cry in the car or in the stroller. Until Hannah was about 3 months old, I wanted to slink around our neighbourhood unseen because I felt I’d be judged as a child abuser because Hannah would howl in the stroller from the moment we left until we returned home.

And this is my favourite: I thought my baby would sleep a lot, allowing me to get some precious sleep (sleep when your baby sleeps!) and get things done. Wrong. For the first seven weeks, Hannah wouldn’t sleep anywhere but in my arms, relegating me to a (fortunately) comfortable chair in the nursery with her propped up on my chest. My husband and I eventually bought a co-sleeper bed, giving Hannah a safe place to sleep within our guest bed and me the ability to sleep lying down. However, keeping Hannah in her little bed has been an ongoing battle as she prefers to lie in the curve of my warm belly with my breast within her reach. It’s very endearing, but as I told my husband last week, “I’m done.” And now I’m filled with a sense of impending doom as we will transition Hannah to her crib this weekend.

But maybe I should take a lighter approach to this crib transition and motherhood in general. Maybe this next challenge will work out just fine. Maybe I’ll end up saying, “What was I thinking?” and, in time, laugh at it too.

One thing I’ve learned in my short time as a new parent is you do whatever works. And I look forward to the countless lessons I know I will learn from my child. No child is the same and as a new mother, I trust I will do some things right and I’m sure I will make mistakes. And something tells me I haven’t said my last “What was I thinking?”—not by a long shot—and I’m thinking… “That’s okay.”

Photo Credit:

“Rose Colored Deceptions.”  Flickr Creative Commons.  Some rights reserved by derekGavey

Guest Author Bio

Lara Perzoff
As a new Mom to five month old Hannah and fairly new wife of Glen, Lara is finding her legs at balancing between motherhood and family. Her family is her true love, inspiring her to write down the many words in her head, preferably when she has two free hands to type. Lara has a background in public relations and broadcast journalism and has always been passionate about creative writing. Besides family time, Lara loves hiking, running, photography, adventure travel, a good cup of coffee with friends and yoga.

What Was I Thinking? Towards a More Realistic View of Motherhood is a post from: LIFE AS A HUMAN

Halloween… the aftermath.

I decided to do it to our kids.  The curiosity was killing me.  I needed to see how they would react.  They were sitting at the kitchen table when I told them.  Corbin immediately crossed his arms over his chest, gave me the evil eye, got off his chair and said. “Come on Hamish, we’re leaving.”  Hamish, of course, followed him down the hallway with his own arms crossed over his chest and eyebrows furrowed in a mock-cross expression.  Then, he turned and cheerfully said, “good bye, Mama, good bye Dad.”  And off they went.  It was pretty funny.  Then, I called them back, told them I was kidding and showed them the video.  Corbin asked me to turn it off because crying irritates his sensitive ears. I don’t blame him.  I was pretty horrified myself and seriously considered removing sugar from my kids’ diets permanently.  The video is worth enduring for the last two kids, however.  

Now, how can I earn the title “sneaky mom?”

Click here to view the embedded video.

Thumbnail Credit

Screen Cap From Video

Hey Jimmy Kimmel! I Told My Kids I Ate their Halloween Candy. is a post from: LIFE AS A HUMAN

Christine Roome recounts the harried moment when she was late for volunteer duties at her son’s school and ponders the seemingly age old question of work/life balance.

I had my Sarah Jessica Parker moment today. No, not Sex in the City. The other one from I Don’t Know How She Does It? At the end of a meeting, I looked at my iphone.

 11:20 a.m.

10 minutes to trek across the University Campus to my son’s elementary school. I’m Running in my skirt and dress boots. I wonder if I still have to go to the gym? I arrive late, sweaty, hair having rearranged itself in a birds-nest-kind-of-way. Flashback to my own childhood when I was the last kid standing in front of my school – wondering if my mom would ever come. Now, I get it. 

I enter his classroom – a not-so-delicate-glow of sweat lighting my face – and I am a lunch-time volunteer. Corbin is so happy to see me.  Work behind me, I’m in his world meeting his friends. One hour later, work starts creeping back and I start making lists in my head. My son has velcroed himself to my skirt.

I am talking to the other Moms – who stay at home – my defences go into high gear. We are are own worst enemies – women. We judge each other and ourselves and nobody, but nobody gets a break. It’s a cliché for me to say that ‘they’ don’t think I’m raising my own kids and yet I am standing there assuming that is what they are thinking. Feminism got us out into the workforce, but where is she now?

“It must be so hard,” they say. I answer with “It is hard,” but I don’t offer a counter argument for why I do it. Truth is, I don’t always know. But, I need both my work and my kids and when I think about answering the question “how does she do it?” All I can come up with is “not very well.” Sometimes work gets the short end of the stick and other times my kids don’t get enough of me.

Google hits for search terms “stay at home vs. working mothers” are aplenty. I just trust that it will all be fine and know that – hard as it is – I have to honour who I am or I will be miserable to myself, to my husband and to my kids.

Photo Credit: I Don’t Know How She Does It trailer. UTube

School Daze #2: I Don’t Know How She Does It! is a post from: LIFE AS A HUMAN

What do an 93-year-old man and 5-year-old boy have in common?  Their love of early 20th century wooden school desks.

Corbin: School is not quite what I imagined it would be.
Me: Can you give me an example?
Corbin: Well, I thought there would be small individual wooden desks with ink wells.
Me: Have you been watching ‘little House on the Prairie’ on UTube?
Corbin: No. I just thought that’s what it would be.

We have now not just survived, but sailed through the first two weeks of full-day kindergarten.  It is easy to get him out the door and he does not want – thank you very much – to be walked to the playground.  He saunters off, backpack dangling awkwardly as he makes his way along with many other small turtles who are full of promise, ambition and enthusiasm.  I am content as I soak up the moment knowing that the day will come when he won’t want to go to school.  ”He looks so small,” my husband says.  If he were a girl, my husband would have teared up.  But, that’s not my guy’s style.

We are celebrating Corbin’s new beginnings along with his brother’s.  Hamish is having a hard time adjusting to his big brother’s absence at daycare, but has commenced his own pre-school program and is brining home shapes and delightful hand print works of art.  And so, on this glorious pre-fall, end of summer day we are heading to Heritage Acres, where we will rejoice in a celebration of steam.  I’m pumped.  Truthfully, though, I am excited.  My Dad belongs to the Vancouver Island Model Engineers and we will ride the trains, eat some corn that has been boiled through the power of steam, and take a ‘nature walk,’ as my son calls it, through the woods.

In two weeks we will have Hamish’s 3rd birthday party here and so I’ve decided to check out the school-house, where we will eat cake and drink libations for the under six set.  After checking out the party room, we walk through to look at some of the exhibits of artifacts hanging throughout the building.  The room next to the party room is a class room.  Corbin walks in and smiles.  He has found his desks with inkwells.  It is not the classroom that Corbin has come to know, with its myriad of toys in primary coloured plastic bins, central heating, tables (not desks), and cozy carpet for story time.  It is the classroom of my son’s imagination.  It is a recreation of the original school-house, which stood in Central Saanich in the early days of the nineteenth century and held kids of more than one grade level.  

Norman Gillan is sitting off to the side of the room in a chair surveying the one room school-house that he attended 85 years ago.  He is alone, quiet and pensive, almost blending in to cork board and black boards behind him.   I turn to him to say hello. He tells me that his little sister who was three and his brother who was four were too young for school, but that they were sent there to keep the class list large enough so that Saanichton School would not be closed.  He tells me that this was his school, that he grew up in Saanich and although he now lives just outside Vancouver, he took a road trip over for the day just to visit the place where he learned to read 85 years ago.  

The school, was built by Thomas Tubman in 1912-1913 and it operated as a public school until the 1970s.  It was originally located on Mt. Newton Cross Road on Vancouver Island in British Columbia.  The two acres were sold to the trustees of Saanich School District with the deed of the land being signed on May 6th, 1914 by Charles Gillan, Norman’s father, who owned the land.  The selling price was $1200.  The school continued to accept enrolment until it was closed in 1975.  In 1980, a grant from Heritage Trust of $17,000 funded the move from its original home to Heritage Acres, where it could be cared for and experienced by the public on the land belonging to the Saanich Historical Artifacts Society.  Thanks to generous donations amounting to $40,000, corporate and service club donations and many hours of volunteer labour, the school-house was restored in 1998.  One room has been recreated to show what the classrooms looked like while the other is used for meetings, events and birthday parties.

“I’m 93 years old, but I still like to come back. I drive myself, you know.  I just bought a new Toyota Matrix.”  Norman told me that he and his sister donated towards the restoration of the school-house.  ”They told me that we donated the most money and put our names on a plaque.”  While I can see that he is proud of this fact, I can also see that it is not the status of being a major donor on this project that pleases him.  He returns regularly just to sit in the room and remember.  

He was a truck driver throughout his life not a high-powered executive or doctor and yet he still feels connected to the place that gave him the foundation of his education.  Of course, I wanted to sit down and ask him so many questions.  But, I had two rugrats running around my ankles needing open space to dispel energy and so I simply thanked him for all he had done and told him the story of my son’s disappointment at not having wooden desks with inkwells in his class room.  I introduced him to my boys, told him that Corbin just started school last week and watched my son’s face as he digested the idea that this man who sat before him attended this very school with his brothers and sisters and friends 85 years ago.  Corbin told him that he liked the wooden desks and Norman said, “yes, me too.”  

 I lost my grandfather almost two years ago.  I still miss him dearly and whenever I meet and engage elderly people I feel a tug at my heartstrings.  I immediately want to adopt them.  I miss the comfortable silence of their company and I miss the stories.  It was hard to leave Norman. I’m a historian and am constantly stopping for all sites of historical interest and reading picture books to my children that recount people, places and events in history.  And, on that perfect fall day at Heritage Acres, I fell in love with a school room and an old man.  And, I recognized that the school desks of my son’s imagination, bound to a remembrance and representation of the idea of school – wooden desks, cherry red apples and scribblers – is fed by people like Norman who nostalgically tied to their own past contribute to the romance of history by keeping it alive through projects like school room restorations.

Photo Credit

© Christine Roome. All rights reserved.

School Daze #1: Wooden School Desks, Cherry-red Apples and Scribblers is a post from: LIFE AS A HUMAN