The Ice Rink and the School Locker

I hope Pea doesn’t fail to see the magnificence of life’s little choices.

Sometimes the littlest decisions can lead to the greatest outcomes.

(Cue Flashback Sequence.)

I’m four, standing at the edge of a freshly resurfaced hockey rink. It is my first day or organized hockey and I’m crying my eyes out, refusing to set foot on the ice. My mom, likely considering both my youthful trepidation and the non-refundable fee she’d already paid for my participation, decides to give me one last word of encouragement before pushing me onto the ice and closing the door. Twenty-six years later, I’m still playing hockey once a week and loving the sport as much as ever.

It’s Grade 10 and I choose a locker close to the guy’s washroom. I want to be able to go pee in between classes and not have to sprint down the hallway, pushing unsuspecting students/teachers out of the way as I curse my tiny bladder. As it turns out, the Pod had chosen the locker right beside mine and by the end of the year my wooing strategy was in full effect.

Wait a second, did the Pod purposely choose a locker close to the guy’s washroom?… naw, it couldn’t be…

I digress.

(End Flashback Sequence.)

As days turn to weeks, and weeks to months, I again find myself wondering what little decisions we are making today that will profoundly impact Pea’s tomorrow. I’m fairly certain that my mother couldn’t predict that pushing me on the ice would have such an outcome. She may have hoped, but knowing for certain is impossible.

Perhaps the switch from purees to a diet consisting mainly of finger foods will put Pea on a path towards the culinary arts.

Perhaps the Rockabye Baby – Bob Marley CD we play for Pea while she sleeps will one day inspire her to pick up a pick and strum the guitar.

Maybe Pea’s love for Oopsie the Care Bear will one day inspire her to work for Kenner and create a Care Bear known as Superfantastic, modeled after her father. This bear would be incredibly handsome, with a keen wit and a firm but fair demeanor. It would be the bestselling Care Bear ever and Pea would become ridiculously wealthy from Care Bear royalties and shower her parents with untold riches.

To me, the best thing about the cause and effect nature of these choices is that you don’t know what the end result will be. No matter how much we’d like to think we can script the future, the truth is that great and wonderful coincidences are going to shape our lives and we are powerless to stop them.

All we can do is enjoy the outcomes.

I may not know what I want my Pea to become, but I hope she doesn’t fail to see the magnificence of life’s little choices.

It's all... so... simple...

I hope Pea doesn't jump the gun.

Now that the Pod is back at work, life is... different. Instead of quietly sneaking out of the house and driving 45 minutes to work, my mornings now involve dropping Pea off at my Pod-in-laws, dropping the Pod off at the office and finally making my way to work. Each way is 1.5 hours.

Our refusal to buy a second car is the right choice, but the 3 hours I spend driving every day gives me time to think, to say the least.

Lately, I've been thinking "simplification". Reduce the commute. Get more sleep. Eat more efficiently. Spend less money. Blog more often. Get more exercise. Have more fun. And so on.

Earlier tonight, I had a Eureka moment... I was convinced that simplification was right around the corner, or in this case, just down the street. In what I am now calling a "severe moment of weakness", I pitched my foolproof plan to the Pod:

Me: Let's sell the house and move downtown.

Pod: What? Why?

Me: We'd be closer to work and remember how much fun we had when we lived downtown?

Pod: What about Pea?

Me: She can come too!

Pod: Thanks, genius. I meant life downtown would be different with a kid. It's not all pub nights and shopping sprees. Pea'll have so much less space in a condo... we went nuts in a condo, just the two of us... now we have a hurricane to add to the mix!

Me: We could get a 2-bedroom plus den. It'll be great!

Pod: And what if we are blessed with another kid?

Me: They can share a room, they'll be best friends!

Pod: You've thought of everything, haven't you?

Me: You know it! WOOT WOOT!

Pod: And if we have a boy? Don't you think they'll want their privacy eventually?

Me: Well...

Pod: We'd have to pay ridiculous condo fees for a bunch of amenities we'll never use...

Me: Right...

Pod: And what about breaking our mortgage?

Me: So we'd have to pay a few thousand in penalties.

Pod: Isn't that a little counter-intuitive to you?

Me: I guess...

Pod: And Pea would never be able to ride her bike... there's too much traffic and smog. And we'd have to go all the way down to the park for her to play, instead of watching her frolic in the backyard. And even then, there's a pervert on every bench downtown.

Me: She could ride her bike in the condo! And we'll get a sandbox for the balcony!

Pod: (Blank Stare)

Me: Ok, bad idea.

Pod: I don't exactly like the suburbs either, but we agreed that we want Pea to grow-up with a backyard to play in and space for us all to keep our sanity. Remember, the more things change, the more they stay the same. We'll settle into our routine and all will be well again. Give it some time.

Me: You are so wise.

So, I'm still looking to simplify, but I now realize that our life is no longer meant to make sense all the time. The only thing I can count on is change. And it's a good thing I took all those change management courses at work, because I'm going to need them.

I may not know what I want my Pea to become, but I hope she doesn't jump the gun.

(N.B. The above conversation has been embellished to illustrate my point... it's my right as a blogger.)

The pity of an unstocked freezer

I hope Pea doesn't fail to see the importance of Popsicle Pete.

I realized today, Father's Day, that while I am doing my best to be a good Dad, I need to get my ass in gear when it comes to being a husband.

Among many other luxuries today, I got to sleep in until 9:30am while Pea and the Pod awoke at 7:30am. I cannot recall the last time I was afforded the chance to sleep so late. Coming from a guy who, a little over a year ago would consider a good lie-in to be a 1:00pm wake up time, 9:30am was heaven sent and amazing.

My dreams during my 2-hour solo sleep included rainbows and lollipops, puppy dogs and Stella Artois', the Toronto Maple Leafs folding up shop forever and winning a brand new car. It was a good sleep.

After waking up, I was presented with my wonderful Father's Day gifts... a gift card to buy a pair of pants and two fully-functional watches (from my existing collection) with fresh batteries. I also received a wonderfully sentimental card that included words like "amazing dad" and "super sexy husband with the best set of pectoral muscles I have ever seen and the calf muscles of a Greek God".

Ok, that last bit may have been embellished a little bit, but you get the point.

I was then whisked away to the Pod-in-laws for a stellar roast beef dinner and returned home to indulge in not one but two Popsicle Pete popsicles - one cherry and one grape.

Looking back on this great day, I'm hard pressed to think of anything but my failings as a husband to the Pod.

Sure, I let her sleep in on Mother's Day, gave her a card that Pea and I made from scratch and tried as much as possible to take the baby-rearing load off her shoulders for but one day. But did she get to have two Popsicle Pete popsicles in one sitting? No. We didn't even have Popsicle Pete popsicles in the freezer on Mothers Day.

What kind of husband does that make me? I don't even want to think about it.

I may not know what I want my Pea to become, but I hope she doesn't fail to see the importance of Popsicle Pete.

They paved paradise...

I hope Pea doesn't discount the importance of watching TV.

Today is Mother's Day. This should, hopefully, come as a surprise to no one, but if I have caught you off-guard please feel free to make a quick phone call. The blog can wait... but not forever, so come back soon (and maybe sign-up to follow or vote in a poll when you do come back... I'm the type of guy that needs the validation).

This year, I of course have a new perspective on what it means to be a Mother. For the past several months, I have watched the Pod care for, nurture and build Pea into an outstanding little individual and while I'm sure some of the credit is mine, the vast majority of it is hers. I came no where close to celebrating the Pod today in a way that is fitting with what she deserves, mainly because there is nothing I could do that would do her justice. She is amazing.

As great a Mom as the Pod is, that's not what this post is about.

I was looking for something on the dresser in our room this evening and I came across a photo of me and my paternal grandmother. She passed away a few years ago and this photo is one of the few I have of the two of us. This may be my favourite photo ever and as I looked at it I felt a great deal of shame. The photo was covered in dust and was buried underneath a mountain of paper; it was obvious I hadn't looked at it in a while.

Let me tell you a little about my grandmother; I'm sure some of you will be able to relate. She and my grandfather lived in Ottawa and together had 13 children. Two passed away at birth and the remaining 11 are now scattered across Canada. Whenever we visited my grandparents (they lived about 5 hours away) there was always food on the table, several aunts and uncles in the house, and a brood of grandchildren running about. Most of my cousins were terrible little monsters and I think the fact that my sister and I lived so far away and were relatively good children endeared us to her quite a bit.

When my father got sick while I was in high school, she and my grandfather came to stay with us and help my mom cope with my dad's illness. Once, while they were watching us, I was terrorizing my sister and she scolded me for it. She later came to me, crying, to apologize for yelling at me. If you've never been the cause of your grandmother crying, I can't adequately describe the guilt you feel. It was horrible.

After my third year of university, I moved to Ottawa for one summer and lived with my aunt, uncle and grandmother for four months. My grandfather had already passed away, and my aunt took in my grandmother, no questions asked (I could do a whole other post on how great my aunt is, but I digress). During these months, I spent a lot of time sitting beside my grandmother watching TV. While I didn't realize it then, these were among the best moments of my life.

Now that she is gone, I would trade just about anything to go back and watch TV with her one more time. My grandmother had a great sense of humour and was as delicate as a flower. As we watched TV, we didn't usually say much, but every now and then she would grab my hand and we'd continue to watch TV in silence. I'd tease her and try to get her to admit I was her favourite grandchild, and she agreed a few times... an admission I am certain many of my cousins also received. But I choose to believe she was telling me the truth.

My grandmother attended our wedding, which made the day 100X better. But she never had the chance to meet our little Pea. That is hard for me to accept, but I take some comfort in seeing little traces of my grandmother in Pea. The way she sucks her bottom lip, or the way she pokes out her chin, are both reminders that my grandmother may have passed away but she isn't gone.

I didn't call either of my grandmothers nearly enough to wish them a Happy Mother's Day and I'm an ass for that. I wish I could, especially now that I can fathom what being a mother to 11 is like! Or even being a mother to 5 like my maternal grandmother was.

As the great Joni Mitchell once put it, "Don't it always seem to go, that you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone."

Happy Mother's Day to all the mom's out there. Especially the Pod, my mom and the Pod's mom.

I may not know what I want my Pea to become, but I hope she doesn't discount the importance of watching TV.

The Gall of Some People

I hope Pea doesn't inherit the gallstones gene.

The Pod gave me a good tongue lashing today. "Why haven't you written in your blog lately, eh, bud? You really are a lazy git and a poor example for your daughter. What a future she has ahead of her with you at the helm, big man."

Oh, she was pissed... as though I had personally questioned her honour in Medieval times. If this were, in fact, Medieval times, she likely would have pulled off a glove and slapped me across the face with it. She was mad people. Mad.

At this point in my blog entry, I have a confession to make. I may have embellished the Pod's level of anger by a few degrees. She wasn't that angry. Actually, truth be told, there was no anger whatsoever. She just asked me why I hadn't written anything lately. But, for the purpose of my blog, this truth is a pretty week opening to my first entry in a week, so I lied a bit. To use an now-underused 80's slang term, 'Sue Me'.

My good people, the answer to my lack of bloggedness this week is simple. On Wednesday, the Pod had some minor surgery to remove some pesky gallstones. Apparently, gallstones are an unfortunate side-effect for many women after their pregnancies... kind of like leaky nipples, skin tags and migraine headaches. In the Pod's case, gallstones are also a genetic gift from her father's side of the family. I'll take detached earlobes over gallstones any day, but you can't argue the X's and Y's of life.

Since her surgery, the Pod hasn't been able to do any heavy lifting or exert herself too much. The surgery itself is fairly unobtrusive, but in the end they still poked around her abdomen like she was on an episode of Grey's Anatomy, so she needed some time to recover.

With the Pod on the mend, I have had a slightly heavier workload at home. The Pod can't pick up Pea, for example, so I've been more hands on with the little lady. Bathing her is more difficult, we have to rig a contraption out of pillows to breastfeed her, and last but not least, I have spent some horrible nights trying to get (and keep) Pea to sleep at night.

I have come to a conclusion. Life is really hard on the partners of people with gallstones.

I know what you're thinking... 'Ricochay, the Pod just had surgery for God's sake... suck it up and be a man'. My response? This is hard! Can you imagine having to take care of a child, for several hours, IN A ROW, with very little help? Changing diapers, taking off dirty clothes, putting on clean clothes, entertaining with countless song and dance routines, waving for hours and hours on end, handing over Cheerio after Cheerio only to watch 95% of them be thrown to the ground with veiled malice? This is SO hard people!

Wait... what?... oh, c'mon, no way... yeah, like I'm supposed to believe that's exactly what all women go through while they are on mat leave... puh-lease... c'mon, for real, it's really like that?... yeah, but I bet they complain all the time... no?... they never complain... huh... interesting... and there are single moms who do this solo all the time?... wow...

If the Pod hadn't slapped me across the face with a glove before this entry, she's likely to after reading it.

All sarcastic wit aside (and I sure hope you sensed the sarcasm), I have gained a whole new level of respect for the Pod since Wednesday. I've had to do, for 4 days, what she has done all day/every day for the past 10 months.

So, to all mom's out there, you rock harder than a gallstone.

I may not know what I want my Pea to become, but I hope she doesn't inherit the gallstone gene.

Knowing when it just won't work out

I hope my Pea won't fall for abusive R&B singers.

Sample timeline of events, that will be referred to throughout this entry:

1. Girl suspects her man of cheating.  Let's call this girl R. Ihanna, for the sake of argument. 
2. Suspicious, R. Ihanna decides to read said man's text message.  Let's call this 'man' Chris B.  
3. Chris B. catches R. Ihanna reading the aforementioned text message.  
4. Angry, and likely feeling guilty, Chris B. beats R. Ihanna to a bloody pulp and inches from passing out. 
5. R. Ihanna refuses to press charges and takes Chris B. back within weeks of violent abuse.

I'm a fairly even-keeled guy.  I've never been in a fight that involved actual punches, much less dreamed of taking my agressions out on a woman.  Don't get me wrong, I've been seething mad plenty of times, but I am a firm believer that punching someone in the face likely won't make the situation better.  And I play hockey.

So the fictional story outlined above really boggles my mind.

But my concern for Pea goes much deeper than "I hope she doesn't get beat up by some a**hole."  That goes without saying.  It's the total lack of self-respect and self-esteem our 'fictional' R. Ihanna demonstrates in taking Chris B. back that concerns me.  

Pea is already a headstrong little lady, and we're trying to instill in her all of the values that parents want their daughters to have - strength, self-worth and an even head to know when to make tough decisions.  As The Clash put it, we want her to have the common sense to ask herself "Should I stay or should I go NOW?"

But I imagine all parents start off wanting these positive traits in their kids.  Whether it is cultural or a result of our environment, so many of us go off the rails.  We become overly critical of ourselves, our friends and partners, and we never reach the point of satiation.  We're never happy.  Our weight, our jobs, our financial situation - it's never what we want it to be.  

As a result, we end up wondering if things will ever get better.  Perhaps poor R. Ihanna thinks Chris B. is the best she will be able to do.  "He loves me, I love him, it was a one time thing."

To bad our R. Ihanna didn't know the rest of that wonderful The Clash song - "If I go there will be trouble, but if I stay there will be double."

I may not know what I want my Pea to become, but I certainly hope she never falls for abusive R&B singers.