#partenting

I tell people I have the yellows.

Gelatinous shade of Omega 3 capsules with their fish oil aftertaste and films about angry White men in Bangladesh, placid shade of egg salad left out long after the picnic is done, oppressive shade of summer joy dulled by the blade of thirst. Colour of get what you want but not what you need, Van Gogh’s stars, bile and birdseed, sedate heart of chamomile, the chaff of wheat, smile-shaped scar showing its betadine teeth. Best paired with May’s gulmohars, bleeding into sky, staining streets, koyals whistling themselves to sludge-thick sleep. I tell people love is easy. It’s the way the body will leaven and rise and crack to keep love fed that really makes you weep.

Hello, my name is Melissa. I am a mother of two small children.

This blog is going to be a place where I can share stories and vent about everything that comes with the wonderful job title of “Mom”. 

I have been a full time stay-at-home-mom for about a year now. My oldest is a boy at the “wonderful” age of three and my daughter is terrorizing the house at one year old. I wouldn't give them up for the world. Although there are plenty of things I would give up for my sanity, memory, and patience back. Like laundry, dishes, or even my comfy maternity leggings that I refuse to give up.

Life is crazy on the best of days. With a “free willed” one year old and a three year old that recently started school, my days are filled with carting kids around, constantly having to make and remake food (because I cut his sandwich into four when he only wanted it cut in to, pick your battles right?) and changing diapers. I am also recently married. Did I mention that? Half the time I forget that five short months ago me and the father of my children finally tied the knot. Mostly because my mind is full of “what are my kids doing?” “how can I get my three year old to eat vegetables?” “when was the last time I drank coffee before it got cold?”.

I am a very fly by the seat of my kids pants kind of parent. With my first I sterilized everything, make sure that he never touched anything that could be remotely dirty, and practically bubble wrapped him (for valid reasons, Ill touch on that in another post). My second... how do I put this? She likes to lick windows. Not just windows, walls, floors, just about anything her little tongue can reach. I hit a point of “she's gotta build an immune system some how”. We just live with the tongue marks on the windows and go on with our day. 

Me: Dad shut up and eat a cookie *hands him a plate of sugar cookies with cats on them*

Dad: No sorry I don't want to eat pussy today, but here I know you need some!

Me: ....

*another scenario*

Mom: What membership?

Me: Bennies...no sorry I mean BJs

Dad: *pops in around the corner* Why? You don't give those!

Me: Dad!

Dad: What you are an adult...I can say these things now.

Last week a little girl sat down next to me at a bus stop. She was four years old at most. Her mother was not much older than me and was standing in the corner of the bus stop staring at her phone. The little girl started chattering at me and told me she was going to her grandma’s and that she had her very own handbag. She then informed me she would be opening her handbag. There was a teddy bear in it. There was also an envelope. But when she took that out her mother came over angrily and snapped at her to keep her hands off mommy’s mail. She pulled the girl on her arm, snatched the envelope and stuffed it back in the child’s bag. The little girl wailed that she was hurt and the mother snapped back at her to shut her mouth. Sniffing the little girl followed her mother back to the corner of the bus stop where the mother stared at her smartphone completely ignoring her daughter, whether she wanted to talk, hold her hand or give her a hug. Finally the little girl wandered off again talking about “picking the strawberries behind the bus stop”. The mother ignored her. I kept an eye on her because I had seen the berries and they weren’t strawberries. They weren’t very poisonous, but you shouldn’t eat them either. But she didn’t, she just picked up a stone and brought it to her mother. So then her mother yelled at her for picking up something filthy and dragged her whimpering child away by the arm. 

Now for all I know this woman was having the worst day of her life. Perhaps she just got fired, her partner left her, or she’s massively in debt. Or maybe all of the above. But I felt so bad for that cheerful, chatty little girl with her big dark eyes and her yellow curls. I was sitting behind them in the bus scowling: “Give her to me if you don’t want her. Don’t you dare teach her that she’s not welcome or that cheerfulness is a useless quality. I’ll take her and whenever she pisses me off I will count to ten and curse in my own head, never at her.” But the worst of it is, that it would never work. Because no matter how horrid that woman was at her child, all that little girl wanted was to hold her hand. Because she is her mother, and no one else.