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With sincere thanks,

Maija
www.maijasmommymoments.com

No the house hasn’t sold (yet!), but Maija’s Mommy Moments is moving to our own brand new domain name. 

So while I’m trying to figure out the new blog I’m hoping you’ll be patient with me.  I know you miss my daily additions to your inbox, but instead of blogging I’m designing.  Actually to be entirely honest I’m trying to figure out the new version of WordPress.

So give me a week and I will be back.  Better than ever.

Stay tuned!

Maija

At any given time it’s a good day if I know where my kids, my keys and my Blackberry are.  The rest we just hope for the best.

But since returning to work I can’t shake this feeling that I am forgetting something.

I drive away from the house with this lingering feeling but a quick check confirms I know where my keys and my Blackberry and usually my purse are.  

I walk through the day feeling like I am missing something and then there is a moment when I am reminded that Sweet Pea isn’t here.  I’m at work instead of at home with her and my entire body, my entire sense of self in short my entire being is adjusting to not having her with me.

I spent just under nine months being pregnant with her (despite not knowing she was there for the first four months see: How Far Along Are You?), I nursed her what seemed like constantly for 11 months and I was lucky enough to be able to spend the last 14 months being home with her. 

Not having her with me, usually attached to me via baby sling, is like walking around with a piece of me - a HUGE piece of me - missing.

I will adapt.  I have the other two times I went back to work from maternity leave.  But this time around is very difficult.    I don’t know if it’s because my littlest baby was a surprise or that she is my last baby but my heart aches until I get home at night and hug her to me. 

I’m in constant withdrawal until I’m with her.  I’m close to tears until I can kiss her.  I spend my days running from meeting to meeting wondering what am I forgetting but not letting myself actually admit, for fear of opening the flood of tears, that it’s my baby. 

So while right at this minute, I know where my Blackberry, my keys and even my purse are, I am desperately missing my baby. 

I can only hope she isn’t missing me like I am missing her.

Note to self

I remembered that too late and was cleaning walls and the ceiling at two o’clock in the morning.

As my cousin Jennifer would say: “good times”.

On this date, seven years ago, at 1:09 a.m. a nurse put a 7 lb 2 oz. baby girl in my arms and my entire world changed.  I became a mother.  I became Sugar Plum’s mother. 

I was 24 years old and I had two thoughts that went through my mind simultaneously: “I love you so much I would die for you in half a second” and “who on earth would give me something so precious and so amazing since I have absolutely no idea what I am doing”.

At that moment when I kissed the top of her head and looked down at her big blue eyes that were so familiar I thought I was holding the most beautiful child in the world and that she would grow-up and do wonderful things. 

Seven years later this couldn’t be more true.

I don’t know how it happened.  I’ve made my share of parenting mistakes, but somehow Sugar Plum has become the child that is almost always polite, almost always plays nicely and fairly with others and almost never excludes anyone. 

She is the child that thanked her daycare workers when they changed her diapers and the one that once told a playmate who had just a second ago promised she would never be Sugar Plum’s best friend “that’s okay you’re still mine”.

She is the child that moms always welcome over to play, the one the teachers always love and the one that never, ever,  would think herself better than someone else.  Daily I am amazed by the ease with which she makes friends, learns new things and adapts to new situations. 

I look at Sugar Plum in awe and wonder what I did in a former life to deserve a child so amazing because honestly there is no other word to describe her.  This may sound like bragging but if you knew her, you would know it’s not.

My dearest Sugar Plum.  I tell you every day that you were my first-born baby.  The first baby of my own that I got to hold and cuddle and love.  Then I look at you deep in your blue eyes that are exactly like mine and say “and that makes you”… when I stop you say “special”. 

I do the same thing with your brother (“you’re my only little boy and that makes you”) and your sister (“you’re my last little baby and that makes you”) and for the rest of my life I promise to do everything in my power to ensure you know that you are loved and safe and supported and special.

On your seventh birthday I think of the next seven years and I want to wrap my arms around you and protect you from the dangers that walk the streets and the boy next door who may break your heart. 

I want you to play team sports so you make long-lasting friendships with girls because it’s your girlfriends who will get you through the hard times in life.

I wish for you to find something you love, have dreams and goals and know that I am always here to help you follow and achieve them.

But above all, I wish for you nothing but happiness.  

From the day you were born whenever I saw the first star, blew out a birthday candle or even got the “wish chip” from the bag I wished for one thing that you, and now all three of my children, will know you are loved, will one day fall in love and will above all be happy.

I don’t wish for money or trips or the newest designer handbag because if I grow old knowing that you are happy and loved by someone you love I will have everything I could have ever hoped for.

Sugar Plum, when I watch you dance, read, swim, sing, sleep or play with your brother and sister I am overwhelmed with love for you.  I will never lose this. 

I promise to try to be the mother I wish I had and the mother you deserve.  There are days I will fail but there were never be days where I do anything short than adore you.

My heart beats for you, my life is lived for you and I am absolutely honoured to be your mother.  There is no better title than your mom and no better life than the one where I get to call you my daughter.

Happy 7th Birthday Sugar Plum. 

With much love always,

Mommy.

Thankfully my in-laws picked up Bugaboo after preschool and took him out for dinner then back to their house. 

I left work an hour early, picked up Sugar Plum at school, dashed to get Sweet Pea then dashed to dance class.  I noticed in the change room that I forgot the actual ballet uniform so poor Sugar Plum was the only one in her class dressed in her black Dance Troupe outfit and all the other little girls were in pink from head to toe. 

Thankfully she wasn’t that bothered by it.

During the hour and a half Sweet Pea and I waited through ballet then jazz I fed her dinner and held her hand while she showed off her new walking abilities up and down the hallway. 

After dance class we went to my in-laws, where I made dinner for Sugar Plum and put all three kids in the tub.

When we got home just after 7:00 p.m. all three kids were in their pyjamas and ready for bed.  We went right upstairs where the two big kids watched a little television in our bedroom while I put Sweet Pea to bed. 

After that I had a quick shower, put my pyjamas on, read Sugar Plum and Bugaboo some books then tucked them into their respective beds, checked in with my sister who was just getting home from the gym, grabbed a bottle of wine and headed down the street to one of my favourite neighbour’s houses for a girls-only Glee party.

When I got home at 11:00 p.m. I went straight upstairs to bed.

Why then, when I got up this morning at 5:30 a.m. did my kitchen look like this:

Especially when my dishwasher looked like this:

That’s right.  Almost empty.

So here are my questions:

1.  If no one actually made or ate dinner at our house where did all these dishes come from?

2.  Since the dishwasher is almost empty why are there so many dishes in the sink?

3.  Who is going to clean this mess?

Clearly the answer to the last question is me.  But I’m still stumped on the first two.

I am sure, like me, mothers around the world get up in the morning, take a look around and ask themselves “Who Made This Big Mess”?  Just once, like on the show “Big Comfy Couch” I would like the camera to zoom in on the culprit and that they in turn answer something along the lines of “I guess I better clean it then”.

One can only hope.

I don’t dwell because I don’t even want to think about what my life would have been like if my mother and father had stayed together.  How two polar opposites came together to marry and create my brother and me will always be a mystery.  Nonetheless, I blame it on northern geography and a small town population.

I am not one of those children who will forever blame their parents for the divorce and whatever fallout came from it.  Since I don’t even have one memory of my parents together I choose to be thankful.  Thankful for some of the things that came into my life that wouldn’t have if my parents had “stayed together for the kids”. 

The best thing, by far, that came from the divorce is Sheila.

I don’t even remember my life without Sheila.  I have memories without her in them, and I know she wasn’t in our life at the time, but I truthfully don’t remember my life to not include my stepmother.

I can imagine it was intimidating coming into our family.  My Dad is almost a decade older than Sheila, had two young children and was still, despite having separated years before, going through a messy divorce. 

Then there was my mother.  I didn’t realize it then, but I know now, it took an exceptionally strong, dignified and selfless woman to be stepmother to my mother’s children.  My mother took a no-holds-barred approach to getting what she wanted and war was definitely declared the second Sheila became a permanent fixture in my father’s life.

I also didn’t make her life any easier.  Once I hit 13, like every teenager, I knew it all.  Because my parents didn’t co-parent or actually communicate much of anything with each other I easily floated from one house to another depending on which rules I liked the best.

Then finally I just stopped liking my dad’s rules at all.  Lying about where I was going and what I was doing was a lot easier with an alcoholic mother who cared more about where she was going and what she was doing.  My brother continued his every other weekend and every Thursday night visits to Dad and Sheila’s but I stopped going.  I stopped calling.  I stopped communicating completely.

I thought my father was awful.  By association so was Sheila.  How foolish we are to just dismiss the people who care about us the most. 

I went three years with hardly a word to my father.  For no other reason than I inherited some of his stubbornness and because I could.  My mother relished the fact that I didn’t want to see my father any more and rather than trying to help me see the error of my ways she took me shopping to reward me for understanding how awful my father really was.

It was a bad situation.  I hurt the people who cared about me the most.  Still, to this day, sorry will never feel like enough.

Then Sheila got pregnant.  We were all at my grandparent’s for Christmas (I must have had some conversation with my father then, but never would have lost the teenaged attitude I am sure) sitting around the dinner table and Sheila and Dad announced they were expecting my little brother.

I was angry.  I don’t even know why.  When Sheila pulled me aside for a quiet conversation (the perpetual smoother-over) I told her as much.  I told her in my I-know-everything-because-I’m-a-teenager voice that I hoped she was a strong enough woman to raise children with my father.  She promised me she was.

Only a few months later I was back in their house.  I wanted to have a relationship with my little brother and in turn re-built relationships with my father and Sheila.  They welcomed me like I had never left.

Then, about ten years after my little brother was born, I became a mother.  Instantly I wanted to be the type of mom that Sheila continues to be to her two children and to her two stepchildren.

Yesterday was Sheila’s birthday.  I won’t tell you how old she is, but she is far too young to be called Grandma.  In a room full of people over for her birthday lunch she was not only Sheila but wife, mother, sister and friend. 

When is was time for cake I pulled it out of the fridge and when I looked at it, I needed a minute.  I needed to  take a few deep breaths to stop the tears.  On the cake – the one I know like all good mothers she ordered and picked-up herself – was written “Happy Birthday Grandma”.  Out of all the titles she carries with her during the day, Sheila chose “Grandma”.

Sheila is far more than my stepmother.  She is the heart of our family.  The keeper of memories and the maker of many more.  She wraps her arms around me never once distinguishing the “step” in “daughter” and above all else she is the most amazing grandmother you could ever wish for your children.

While working full-time, doing her PhD and being a full-time wife and mother Sheila still finds time to be a full-time Grandma.

My kids adore her.  They treat her house as their own, know where all the special treats are hidden and say things like “muffins taste better at Grandma’s”.  Bugaboo will easily crawl into her arms and cuddle until he falls asleep and Sugar Plum reminds me constantly that Grandma makes the best Hallowe’en costumes.  Sweet Pea has both her Grandma and her Grandpa wrapped around her finger but I couldn’t be happier to have her spoiled by them.

I know that my kids will have the same relationship with Sheila that I have with my own Grandma and I don’t know any greater gift she could give my children.  

The day Sheila became “Grandma” I got to stop calling her stepmother.  The word has such a nasty connotation to it, since it is so often preceded by the word “wicked”.  To anyone who knows her, “wicked” is a word that would never be used to describe Sheila.

Now instead of saying “this is my stepmother…” I get to say “this is Sugar Plum, Bugaboo and Sweet Pea’s Grandma”.  A title that clearly means as much to her as it does to me. 

Happy Birthday Sheila.  You will never know how much your love, strength and support continues to help shape the person and the mother I am and want to become. 

Thank you for being strong enough to mother my father’s children.  All four of us.

Every day this week she has messaged me with words of back-to-work encouragement, offers to help with my children and perhaps most importantly a glass of wine at the end of the day. 

A few weeks ago I asked her to tell her own back to work story.  She hummed and hawed and told me she wasn’t a writer. 

I pushed back and told her I expected something in my inbox the first week of September.  That I was going to publish it on my blog.  But the first week of September came and went and I didn’t want to push again… perhaps I had over stepped a little.  I have been known to do that once or twice.

Then, last night as I was cleaning out my inbox I found an email.  With an attachment.  It wasn’t a new message so somehow I missed it (I blame the blackberry).  But there it was, sitting in my inbox for the last two days.

Sherry – thank you so much for all your support this week.  Knowing that others have come and gone before me and lived to tell the tale makes all the difference.

“Hello.  My name is Sherry.  I have 2 daughters, 8 and 10 years old
and I am a working mother.“

Yes, I do sometimes feel like being a working mother has a social stigma attached to it like being an alcoholic.  It is something you chose to do.  It is something that you rely on for one reason or another.  It is something that not everyone approves of. 

I have been back to work for seven years now.  I knew when I went back to work after my second maternity leave that was it.  I would have no more maternity leaves, no more summers off, no more taking for granted that I would be home over the Christmas holidays.  I would work until I retired. 

Perhaps like many of you, I went back with mixed emotions.  The first day I dropped my daughters off at daycare I cried.  I cried because I missed them.  I cried because even with the expense of two in full-time daycare, I knew going back to work was our best option financially which made it feel like no option at all.  I cried because I knew I would be scrutinized for my decision to come back to work and for our decision to put them in a formal daycare environment rather than “a loving home daycare” environment. 

Mostly, I cried because of the guilt I felt; no, not the guilt of putting them in daycare so “someone else could raise them” but the feeling of guilt that comes with the relief of being able to take my Mommy hat off for eight hours a day, five days a week. 

Trust me, I don’t love my job.  I know it doesn’t define me.  I know I don’t wake up every morning bright-eyed, anxious to see what hell hath slain upon my Inbox.  I wake up knowing that there is a great possibility the next two hours will include bickering sisters, mismatched socks, lost homework and explaining for the one millionth time why one needs to brush her teeth and hair before going to school or summer camp. 

I know there may be raised voices, stress and chaos as we race to get out the door so I may get to work at a “decent time” (Decent is such an ambiguous term, isn’t it?).  I know all of this yet I continue to choose to go to work rather than give up the income, downsize our house or our lifestyle to be home when the bus arrives. 

But I also know I am not cut out to be a stay-at-home mom.  Putting my girls’ needs first was what I was doing when I decided to return to work fulltime after my second and last maternity leave.  I don’t believe I am alone in this feeling though it is not popular or widely supported when said out loud.  There are many other women who take on the challenge of balancing both work and home simply to have those few hours a day when your identity, your name, your self-worth is defined by more than your accomplishments as a mother. 

Don’t get me wrong, I believe being a good Mom is the most rewarding and important job of all and that staying at home is not easy by any stretch of the imagination.  I know that those who do choose to stay at home can certainly maintain non-Mommy identities and be filled with self-worth but for some of us, we need something different. Not something easier or harder, less stressful or more stressful, just something different and separate from motherhood and often going to work fulfills that need. 

Even more than a need to maintain my identity was the internal knowledge and belief that with work, I would be a better mom to my girls.  Work is like my own personal respite care. 

I am not the woman who gushes over others’ babies or delights in the cuteness of all toddlers, nor am I a tough high-power executive who thrives on getting ahead at all cost.  Anyone who has known me for half a second knows that I adore and brag too frequently about my own children and that I do have a solid career but for me to have chosen to be a stay-at-home Mom was not a good idea.  It would not have been good for me which in turn meant it would not have been good for them.  Since I know this, why do I often feel like a second-rate Mom?    

We have all had the “stay-at-home Mom versus working-Mom” conversation whether it be with our spouses, our families, our friends or simply with another Mommy at the park (which Maija blogged about see Truth be Told Sometimes) and what I find most disappointing with these discussions is the word versus.  Why must we compete with each other as if to divide and conquer?  I am not perfect in the regard myself. 

Why as women, as mothers, do we feel a need to defend our decisions to those who should be our best supporters?  Standing together is something our mothers and grandmothers understood.  Together, as a sisterhood, they fought so today we actually have a choice to make. 

So that is my return-to-work story.  Some of you will be able to relate, and some may not because work is purely a financial necessity or because you chose not to go back to work.  What matters here is that regardless of whether we are stay-at-home moms or working moms the commonality of being a mom should unite us, not divide us.

No baby.

So I made my way out of the kitchen, down the hallway and there she was.  One foot on the floor, one knee on the first step and the gate that was supposed to prevent this very situation (or what comes if I don’t get here just in time) gently placed against the wall.

She looks at me.  She wants to climb. 

I want to pick her up, put the gate where it’s supposed to be and get on with the dishes.  But her big blue eyes and her sheer determination reminds me that the dishes can wait.

“Go ahead” I tell my little Sweet Pea.  “Mommy’s here.” 

She happily climbs the first few stairs and then slips a little.  I reach my hands out to catch her, but she puts a foot down to steady herself.

She looks back, a little scared, but I’m there, right behind her, hands out to catch if she needs me.  Sweet Pea smiles and in the knowledge that I am there contentedly continues her climb to the top.

At the top of the stairs she sits and looks down to admire her handy work and I pick her up and kiss her and tell her that she’s a big girl.

She’s proud of herself and starts pointing at the stairs trying to jump out of my arms so she can climb them again.

It’s right there, in that moment, I know one day these stairs will be mountains and Sweet Pea will want to climb them.  Maybe not real mountains but the peaks that will make up the most memorable moments of her life.

And I will be there.  For the rest of my life, with every breath in my body, I will be there to encourage and to catch. 

My children will never go through life wondering who will catch them if they fall.  My children will never question that I will drop everything, including a dirty pot into the sink, when I know they need me. 

I didn’t have that from my own mother.  But my children will have nothing but.