Category: Mothering without a licence

Kids and technology: how old should they be?

This is yet another blog post inspired by a twitter conversation. (And they say twitter killed blogs!) The twitter conversation itself evolved from a conversation about bullying, and about Rick Mercer’s eloquent rant, and included this post by my friend Angela on how her 12-year-old daughter was being harassed by text messages. (It’s a good post – you should read it. I’ll wait here until you get back. Her message is important, maybe moreso that whatever I’ll come up with here, so if you only have time for one post today, read hers and come back to this one tomorrow!)

All of which brings me to what I’m wondering about, which is this: at what age do kids start getting their own cell phones? What about their own social media and online accounts? Obviously, the answer is going to be different for each family and each child, but I’m curious about your thoughts. My boys have only recently “discovered” Club Penguin and its very controlled online interactions – and this has been pretty much the extent of their interest in connecting with their peers online. I’m thinking this is a bullet I can’t dodge for long.

Really, I guess I’m just curious. I was a little surprised to hear that kids as young as 10 or 12 are carrying cell phones, to be honest. I thought this was a conversation we’d be having when the kids were approaching high school, not smack in the middle of elementary school. I asked the boys if any kids in their class have mobile phones or talk about Facebook, but they seem to be blissfully oblivious — so far, at least.

What do you think?

Leading an unbalanced life

I was at a seminar recently that discussed the differences between the Baby Boomers, Generation X and the Millennials. One of the key differences between the three generations was what they seek in life: the boomers chased money and status, the GenXers chased balanced, and the Millennials seek meaning and personal fulfillment.

Ah, balance. It’s true. My grown-up life has been a quest to find that elusive life balance. Not just in work/home life, but in time for me versus time for the family. I’ve seen it said before: we’re a generation that grew up being told we can do it all – but we don’t really want to do it all, we just want to do some of it enough that we feel we’re doing most of it. So very post-modern of us.

I’ve been thinking about balance a lot lately. The big irony in my life right now, I think, is that when I dropped my day job down to part-time status at 30 hours per week a couple of years ago, I pretty much nailed the balance thing. Three days at home, four days at work. I felt like a good mom, but I was living a life outside of the house too. Breathing space all around.

And then, because I never can sit still for long, I pulled it all out of whack again with this photography phase I’m in. I’m delighted that it’s been such a success, but I’m exhausted, too. Now instead of one job, I’ve got three: the day job, the blog job, and the photography job. Oops. And all that other stuff moms are supposed to do, too.

The toughest part is that the photography job feels selfish, because at the end of the day it’s optional, and a choice I can make. A couple of years back, working full-time was not an option. Weekends crammed with photo sessions and editing? That’s an option, something I’m doing for love as much as – hell, even more so than — money.

So what’s the problem? The guilt. Oh, the guilt. And it’s back with a vengeance, because now I’m *choosing* to spend time on the computer, or in front of my camera, instead of doing a lot of other often meaningless but ultimately necessary domestic minutiae. I mean seriously, what would you rather do? Head out to the countryside with a couple of cute kids and chase ’em around for a couple of hours — or clean the toilet?

I know it’s a busy season for photographers, but right now, I feel like I’m spending way too much time with the computer balanced precariously on my lap, my attention span wavering between the image opened in Photoshop in front of me, the domestic battles raging around me about whose turn it is to watch what on TV, and a boy’s earnest but dreadfully boring recount of what’s just happened on Club Penguin, all while pointedly ignoring the crumbs from yesterday’s dinner that never got swept off the counter.

I’m not complaining here, make no mistake. I am so proud of what’s become of the photography business, to say nothing of my mad photography skillz over the last little while. But yeesh, talk about being the architect of your own demise.

Those of you who know me best are probably not even surprised by this turn of events. I mean, there’s nobody to blame here but me and my infernal inability to sit still.

So this whole balance thing must be a bit of a myth, right? Is it working for you?

In which she uses neutering the cat as a cautionary tail

So we’re emasculating poor Willie the Cat today. Or, as Simon so eloquently put it, “he’s getting his neuters taken out.”

This whole neutering thing has provided an unexpected wealth of teachable moments. We’ve recently had conversations with the boys about the responsibilities of pet ownership, about the differences between males and females of various species, and even some rudimentary sex education.

I think the big takeaway, though, is this one: don’t mess with mom or she’ll have your balls cut off. That’s a good message for three boys to internalize, don’t you think?

Willie for the blog 2

(Photo caption: “You’re gonna WHAT my WHAT now??!)

Sorry, Willie. But thanks for the cautionary tail — erm, tale.

Five reasons why guitar lessons are better than hockey

August was marked by much anxiety about sports. I googled, I asked friends online and IRL, I blogged, I tweeted, I wrung my hands in anxiety. To hockey or not to hockey, that was the compelling question.

Do you like how I just turned hockey into a verb? If ‘friend’ can be a verb, so can hockey. And we, as a family, have decided not to hockey. At least, not yet.

When I realized that I was projecting many of my own innermost anxieties about social acceptance and peers onto the situation, I realized I had lost all perspective and sought the opinions of others. (The irony does not escape me that even in this, I seek external approval for my actions and validation of my decisions. Don’t judge me.)

There were many factors that informed our decision to not hockey, and many voices. On the pro-hockey side there were those who shared their own childhood hockey experiences, those who loved being a hockey parent (see, if hockey can be an adjective as well as a noun, surely it can be a verb as well!) and those who saw hockey as a natural right of passage for their sons and daughters. On the con side, there were those who expressed reservations about the cost, the culture and the violence. Annie of PhD in Parenting wrote a post that helped me crystalize my own reservations – read it here, because it’s worth seeing the other side even if you’re a rabid athletic supporter.

389b:1000 Go for the gold, Canada!

I was so torn that I first registered and then a week later de-registered one son from our local minor league team. The money and the time commitment were just too great, and I couldn’t rationalize the benefit against the costs. When I told said boy that we had in the end decided it was best for our family that he not play hockey this year, he looked at me mildly with this thoughtful brown eyes, shrugged his shoulders and said, ‘Okay.’ For this I lost hours of sleep.

The absence of hockey gave us room for activities for two boys. One will join Beaver Scouts, something I find endlessly delightful. And, it’s around the corner on Thursday evenings instead of all over the eastern half of the province at wildly unpredictable times. The other was given a choice of activities, and he chose — be still my heart — guitar lessons.

There was more googling, more researching, more consultations. A school was chosen, a guitar was acquired, a teacher was hired, a time slot was secured. In the end, the total cost for the first year of lessons and the guitar may yet exceed the cost of the damn hockeying.

And you know what? I am happy with that. Moreso, I am delighted with this turn of events. We are artsy, musical people. (Well, Beloved and Papa Lou are musical. Me, not so much. Despite seven pathetic years of school band, I remain largely tone deaf and unencumbered by any sense of rhythm whatsoever.)

Here’s five reasons why guitar lessons trump hockey playing:

1. We do not risk growing out of this guitar in mid-season.

2. Guitar lessons do not take place at 6 am on a Saturday, or in damp, dank 12C arenas.

3. There is little to no risk of a concussion in guitar lessons.

4. Other parents do not yell angrily at your child during guitar lessons. (Although the jury is still admittedly out on whether we will yell angrily at our own children in the act of encouraging the practicing of said guitar lessons.)

5. Chicks dig guitar players.

We start our first lessons this week. I can barely wait!

In which she accidentally registers her boys for dance camp

I‘m thinking maybe I need a new category for the blog: “Notes for future therapy sessions.” That way, the boys’ future therapists will have an instant body of research from which to draw.

You can’t really blame me, though. I mean, I had a COUPON!

Like so many of the misadventures in my life, it started with the best of intentions. I needed child care for the last week of August for the big boys. Late in the spring, I received one of those group buy e-mails offering half-price day camp. I checked the location and it was literally around the corner from where I worked. I checked the ages and they qualified. I checked the description and it said there was a circus theme with juggling and acrobatics. Circus camp? PERFECT! Clickety click, and they’re registered. Oh how I love the Interwebs.

Life is funny, yanno? You register your kids for a summer camp right around the corner from your work, and then six weeks later when the camp week comes up, you’re not working there anymore. You’re actually working way downtown, and what was right around the corner is suddenly a 20-minute detour out of your daily routine. Oops. If only that were the worst of it.

Beloved usually handles the morning routine, and so he was doing drop-off duty the first day of camp. He called me in mid-morning to check in, and reported that there was some apprehension when he pulled up the driveway and the boys noticed the sign for a dance school. A what now? Oh well, they’re probably renting out the space during the summer for extra income. That makes sense.

I should interject here with a little anecdote. Three years ago, one of the boy’s teacher called me to let me know that she had put him in the equivalent of a time-out during gym class. They were doing some sort of dance, and he had dug in his heels and abjectly refused to dance with a girl partner. It was one of the few times I got a call from the school that year, and I was more entertained than concerned. He doesn’t like to dance with girls? Meh, that will change.

Ahem. It took until the end of day two for the reality of our camp crisis to become apparent. It was not Circus Camp at all – it was Dance Camp. *dun dun DUNNNNN* Not only was it dance camp, but the ratio of girls to boys was about 15:1, which will be great odds later in life, but for your average 9 year old is one of Dante’s circles of hell. Even one whose best friend happens to be a girl.

And, true to his earlier self, it seemed my boy was rather, shall we say, resistant to the idea of dancing. I spent most of the drive home that day reassuring him that if it was truly that bad, he only had to tough it out two more days – I was scheduled for a day off that Friday anyway, and he could stay home with me. But he did have to suck it up for two more days, so we talked a bit about the value of trying new things, maintaining a positive attitude and making the best of a bad situation. And the whole way home, I was kicking myself. Dance camp? Really? How did you miss THAT one? Ugh.

(For the record, the other boy was all over the dance camp idea. I’m being vague on purpose here, because they’re getting to the age where their stories are their own and I am making some efforts to protect their privacy while still milking these stories for all they’re worth. If you know my boys IRL, you’ll have little trouble guessing which was which.)

Then a funny thing happened. On day 3, the boys were cheerful and full of stories of the adventure of their day. The boy who wanted to quit the day before said maybe it was not so bad, and he’d tough it out for the week. And oh, by the way Mom? There’s a show on Friday, can you come and watch us? And the day after that, there was question as to whether they could register for another week of camp next summer — or maybe even for the whole summer?

Huh. Turns out when you stop sulking and actually participate, you end up having a much better time of it. Who woulda thunk it?

Which bring us to the Friday show. Lucas and I both attended, and all four of us were surprised when Beloved managed to scootch out early and make it to the show, too. It wasn’t exactly Broadway, but we were well entertained nonetheless.

252:365 Circus camp show

So that’s the story of how I accidentally registered the boys for dance camp, and how they overcame the adversity and managed to have a good time after all. And now I can take full credit for my actions and say with a certain smugness that I knew it would work out fine, and broadening their horizons was my goal all along. I totally intended this as a life lesson on keeping an open mind and trying new things.

At least, that’s what I’ll tell their future therapists…

Hockey mom angst

With three boys, it was inevitable that the hockey issue would come up sooner or later. The time I have long dreaded has arrived. One of the boys wants to play hockey.

I am totally torn about this. My Official Canadian Parenting Handbook says that any boy child must endure enjoy at least one season of playing hockey in his lifetime. My Official Lazy Parenting Handbook says that a hockey rink is a hell of a place to spend two perfectly good hours every week. My bank account shudders at the idea of $550 just in registration fees alone, to say nothing of gear. My husband thinks I’m insane for even considering it, and although is opposed in principal, will likely be swayed if I set my mind to it. My barely repressed rejected inner child thinks this is the key to popularity — or at least, of not being marginalized among his peers. My already insanely busy life has no room for up to an hour of traveling to various rinks throughout Eastern Ontario on game day, to say nothing of practices that may run any time from 6 am to 8 pm.

Most importantly, though, my boy asked for it. This is the boy who gamely endured two years of (expensive, lengthy) skating lessons and can still barely stand on the ice. The one who is already reasonably popular among his peers. The one who would rather sit on his hiney and play video games than do just about anything else.

24:365 Skates

I had no idea this choice — to register for hockey or to not register for hockey — would be so filled with angst. And that’s if you can even find the information you need to register. Thank goodness for this great post for rookie hockey parents from Kids in the Capital and a little handholding from a BTDT friend of mine, because you can’t find ANY other useful information online.

What I’m realizing is that really, it’s not even about the hockey. It’s about being part of the team, and the status that somehow infers on the rest of his life. I come from a place where I was the odd kid out, and still bear the scars today in an almost unreasonable anxiety that the same things may happen to my boys. Six hundred bucks and a couple dozen hours out of my year seem like a small price to pay to mitigate that possibility.

And then, my stubborn side kicks in and voices agreement with Beloved, who is vaguely resentful of the implication that you must join the giant hockey machine and fork out that ridiculous sum of money just to be part of some intangible club. I think of all those hours of lacing skates (OMG how I hate lacing skates) and lord knows I probably won’t escape without getting sucked into some infernal volunteer role with the club.

I wonder if he’s totally forgotten the tears, the cold, aching feet, the crazy rush through dinner to make it to the rink on time. I wonder if he, so like his mother, likes the idea of hockey more than he will enjoy actual hockey. I wonder if we’ll get as far as October and face a twice-weekly battle of wills, where I have to battle both my own inertia and his reluctance to play. I wonder if I’m overplaying the importance of this silly game in his peer culture. I wonder if I’m doing the other brother a disservice by not signing him up while I’m at it, which would be twice as awful all-around, unless I was wrong and it is that important.

249:365 Hockey skates

I dithered about this for a month, and finally found the right person to ask about registration for our league. To my relief, she promptly replied that the novice level is completely full for the season, so very sorry. I breathed a huge and regretful sigh of relief. The decision was no longer mine to make, it was out of my hands.

Until the e-mail she sent just now, saying they just had some spaces free up. Did I want to register my son now, before they disappeared again?

I honestly don’t know. Do I?

The end of a decade of diapers

With the exception of a brief and glorious six month break in late 2007, we’ve been changing diapers in this house for a rather astonishing nine and a half year block. Assuming a reasonable five diapers a day, and nearly two years of double diaper duty while Tristan was a toddler and Simon a newborn, that’s conservatively just a little shy of TWENTY THOUSAND diapers.

*pause for thoughtful consideration of the mountain of time, money and mess that comprises 20,000 dirty diapers*

And so, we embark upon our last potty training voyage. I have to admit, we’ve been a little laissez-faire about the whole thing. The idea had been that we’d approach potty training while we were both home on vacation this summer (the other boys were successfully potty trained in the summer around age 3.5 as well, so we really haven’t even thought about trying before now) except with the French test and the photography and everything else, we sort of forgot to get around to it. So with just a few days of vacation left, I decided rather abruptly this week that it was time — no fanfare, no breathless bloggy updates, and no frantic googling of tips and tricks. I bought a pack of underwear, and dug out a bag of skittles from the treat box. We were good to go.

It was my friend UberGeek, also father to three boys and just far enough ahead of us on the parenting curve to be full of great advice, who suggested the disposable underwear idea. Given that the first few days and weeks would inevitably lead to accidents, he suggested when we were potty training Tristan way back in the day that we acquire the biggest bag of cheap underwear we could find for the training period, and save the fancy Sponge Bob and Spiderman licensed stuff for the longer term. Sometimes, it’s easier to toss a mess than to deal with it. Hey, it’s cotton, it will biodegrade far quicker than those 20,000 disposable diapers!

Lucas did great for the first day. I sat him on the potty a few times and nothing happened, but to our great surprise and delight, late in the afternoon he rushed frantically into the bathroom saying, “I gotta go! I gotta go!” and he did – in the toilet. That’s one clear advantage of big boys who potty train well past the toddler years — we’ve never bothered with an actual potty and for the last two boys didn’t even bother with special seats for the regular toilet. I’m all about the convenience and path of least resistance, and this definitely qualifies!

The next day, we had mixed success. He did well all day until the big boys reported he was hiding shortly before dinner, his telltale sign that he was busy filling his diaper — except he wasn’t wearing one. So we’re down one pair of underwear but more importantly, I was abruptly and unpleasantly reminded of my least-favourite aspect of this whole potty training deal: the wiping. I seem to manage to erase the ugly details from child to child, but it seems to me in retrospect that the period between graduation from diapers to potty and the ability to wipe one’s own tucus is interminable. It’s actually way easier to wipe a prone butt with a diaper wipe than an upright butt with toilet paper. Way easier. #357 on the list of things they forgot to put in the parenting manual.

And now here I am at the point of this long and rambly potty post. There is one key difference between potty training this child and his two older brothers — a septic system. The potty training part doesn’t worry me at all, but in my less enlightened pre-septic years, I found those so-called “flushable wipes” a godsend. Butt! (ha!) Consumer Reports found that while TP disintegrated in a mere 7 seconds, a flushable wipe did not even start to break down even after 30 minutes of agitation. Do a quick search on “flushable wipes septic system” and you’ll never flush one down again, I promise you.

So, enlightened bloggy peeps, any ideas to make the interminable stretch of butt-wiping a little more bearable? I’m thinking maybe dampening the TP first? Using the wipes but bagging them and throwing them out? Is there something simpler that I’m overlooking?

Feel free to share your potty training travails and successes as well. I think I may need the inspiration in the days, weeks and *whimper* months to come…

Around the corner

It continues to amaze me that the most remarkable milestones in the boys’ social and emotional development seem to happen unpredictably and completely without precursor and, even more astonishingly, with pretty much no intention or intervention on my part.

It’s early Saturday afternoon and I’ve just returned from my weekly grocery adventure. I’m unpacking cereal and pickles and red peppers when Simon asks if I can call A’s parents to to ask if A can come over. A is Simon’s school chum, and lives down the block and around the corner.

Because I’m concentrating more on the task of fitting an 11-inch long bunch of celery into a 10-inch crisper, and because we have had this conversation many times before, I don’t give Simon my full attention. “Not now, Simon,” I begin, ready to put off yet again the coordination of a playdate. “We still don’t have A’s phone number, and I don’t know what their plans are today…”

Then I stop, and think. We know kids in the neighbourhood but not on the street, and I’m vaguely annoyed on an ongoing basis that I have to act as social coordinator any time the kids want to play with a friend by setting up play dates in advance via telephone or e-mail with the parents. Why am I doing this? When I was a kid, if I wanted to go out and play with a friend, I’m pretty sure my mom never called ahead to arrange things. I just went. I knocked on the door, and if the friend couldn’t come out, I’d wander off and find something else to do, maybe try another friend or maybe play on my own. The only thing even remotely resembling a scheduled play date was either when friends who had moved out of the neighbourhood got together, or when we visited my parents’ friends who happened to have kids, and then we all played together while the parents drank and played cards discussed important parenting issues.

I take a long look at Simon, who is looking at me and my derailed train of thought with curiousity. I don’t consult with Beloved in advance, but he’s sitting right there listening and I know he’ll speak up if he’s concerned.

“Do you want to go ask A if he wants to come over to play?” I ask Simon, and he lights up like a pinball machine.

“Oh yes!” he exclaims, dropping the video game controller in his hand.

“Tristan, will you walk with Simon down to A’s house and walk back with them?” There is safety in numbers. It’s only about 10 houses, maybe less, and one very quiet residential street to cross, but I feel better if they’re together. It’s only a little bit further than our community mail box, to which Tristan regularly walks alone. Tristan, always up for any perceived gains in independence and who also likes A, is amenable to the idea.

I figure it’s vaguely more polite to invite A back to our house than for both boys to show up uninvited expecting an invitation in, even though that’s exactly what I would have done at age seven. I look at Beloved, but he seems fine with the idea. I briefly talk them through any potential pitfalls in the plan: if A is not home, they are to come straight back. If they get invited in, call home to let me know. No talking to any other grown-ups on the way, no stopping, no wandering.

They scamper off across the lawn and I watch them go. I’m smiling and anxious at the same time. They deserve this freedom, I know, and I truly believe it’s important. Still, I can’t help but worry. I wander back inside after they disappear from view, and ask Beloved if it’s wrong that I’m more concerned about my mother’s reaction to this abdication of parental responsibility than I am about the risk of child abduction or other unspeakably remote horrors.

Enough time lapses that I have put away the groceries and kindled a small flame of anxiety wondering why I haven’t heard from them when they come rambling back up the street with A, A’s older sister who happens to be in Tristan’s grade, and their father in tow. Waiting on the porch as they round the driveway, I feel the tiniest flicker of something that is not quite embarrassment, not quite shame, wondering if A’s parents are agog that I’ve let the boys venture out unshepherded like this. He seems content enough to leave the kids to my care, though, and after a few hours I lead a rag-tag parade of all four kids, plus Lucas and the dog, on the expedition to return A and his sister home.

The boys are seven and nine, and this is the first time they’ve ever simply walked over to a friend’s house and knocked on the door. I’m proud of them, but a little bit sad, too. How did we get to a place where this is a milestone achieved so late in the kids’ lives? I clearly remember running in a pack of neighbourhood kids that included an unsupervised three-year-old, bane of the existence of us older kids. I know this isn’t the 1970s anymore, but really, is the world so different?

The next chapter in the daycare saga that never ends

Daycare.

Sigh.

I really hope that our struggles to find consistent, affordable, quality daycare have been the exception instead of the rule, but I fear otherwise.

As you may remember, I found out in early April that the caregiver taking care of Lucas is getting out of the business so she’ll have more time to care for her aging parents. Perfectly understandable, but that leaves us searching for daycare. Again. For the eighth time in just over eight years.

I could wail and gnash my teeth – I came very close – but *shrug* that won’t help find new daycare. So I sent the word out on every network I could think of, and while I’ve come up with a few options, nothing is yet settled. This is Lucas’s last week with the current caregiver, but since Beloved will soon be home for the summer, we won’t need care until mid-August. The week before our caregiver announced her pending retirement from the business, I had registered Lucas in 3-days-a-week nursery school, so we’ve been hoping to find someone who can shuttle him to and from nursery school two days a week and care for him the rest of the time. Not likely, I know, but we got lucky on this count once before with Simon.

A friend recommended her former caregiver, but I nearly choked when I heard the rates: $57 a day. (!) The most I’ve ever paid per-child is $40, so that was a bit of a shock. We met, though, and after talking to her I was very nearly sold and ready to sign on. I had some concerns, but liked her style and philosophy well enough to swallow them. She runs an intensive educational-type program with scheduled activities, circle time, crafts, things like “letter of the week” and show and tell — it sounded much more like preschool and nothing like most of the home care we’ve had. At $969 a month for part-time, it was a big pill to swallow, but truly, what cost is too high to know your child is safe and happy? Oh that nefarious parental guilt.

She wanted to be paid for statutory holidays, which I understand (even though I don’t get paid for them as I work part time), and a couple of weeks of paid holidays each year. Again, okay, but the costs were starting to mount up. When I mentioned in passing that Beloved’s school year is done in May, she told us her school year runs until July 1st and we’d have to pay to that date to keep a spot for the following fall, and then in the days before we signed the contract, a few more issues presented themselves. It wouldn’t work out.

The next thing I looked into was the Manotick Montessori. I know a few people who have had wonderful things to say about the Montessori program, so I looked it up. Yikes! They charge $1400 per month, more than I was paying to have a full-time live-out nanny to care for all three boys. Scratch that option.

I got our names back on the centralized waiting list for Ottawa, and am waiting to hear if we can get a spot at the Rideau Valley child care centre. I’d still have to pay full-time rates, but I’d have the flexibility of a spot available any day of the week should we need it, and their hours of operation are more accommodating to the potential early mornings Beloved may face. They’re $881 per month for full time, which I don’t mind paying, even if I’m paying for the Wednesdays I keep Lucas home with me. I have some concerns about a day care centre as we’ve never gone that route before, but since Lucas is so ready for school (oh how I wish I could enroll him in JK this fall!) I’m sure he’ll take to it. The chances seem fairly good that we’ll get a spot, but once again we’ll have to quit the centre for the end of May and hope there is a spot for us again next August if we want the summer off — or suck it up and pay for three full months of care we won’t use.

And, I’m still running down options for in-home care in the neighbourhood, but after a month of beating the bushes, nothing has come to fruition on that front. Anyone know a daycare in Manotick with spots for a precocious but adorable preschooler?

Sigh.

The fact that I know I’m not the only one jumping through these insane hoops on an annual basis doesn’t make me feel any better. Daycare should not be this complicated, irregular patchwork of solutions. It’s easiest for me to complain about the money, but really, I wouldn’t have a problem paying $1000 a month for 100% reliable, quality care. I can’t imagine how hard it must be on families that have extra complications like shift work, or only one parent, or less money to throw at the problem.

We’ll get through this, and I can see the light at the end of the daycare tunnel for us. The boys’ school has before- and after-school care on site, so really, I just have to get through the next three years, tops, and we’re done. But after eight years of fighting an uphill battle, of posting ads and reading flyers and conducting interviews and trying to glean from first impressions whether someone is worthy of entrusting to them my most precious treasure — I’m tired, really, really tired of this.

I should have thought of this years ago

I used to hate bringing the boys for their swim lessons. The swimming lessons themselves are a good thing — I see them less as weekly exercise and more as a fundamental survival skill. Swim lessons are not really an option, they’re a necessity. And I didn’t begrudge the time, the cost, or the shuttling them back and forth to the community centre.

What I really hated were the change rooms. I hated the fact that the alternate use (aka “family”) changerooms were always so crowded. I hated trying to yank dry clothes onto damp, wriggling boys in tropical humidity levels. I hated the fact that the tiled floors and walls made even the slightest noise an echo chamber from hell. I hated the fact that I never came out of the changerooms without being damp and sweaty and cranky.

At the beginning of this most recent session of swim lessons, I noticed the sign on the wall outside the family changeroom at the community centre. “This changeroom is for the use of parents with opposite-sex children under the age of seven.” Hmmm. Simon is seven, Tristan is nine. I’ve noticed this sign before, but always justified my willful ignorance of it on the fact that at least one of the kids was under the maximum age.

The idea of sending them into the men’s changeroom unattended made me uneasy. Would they be okay? Would they comport themselves in a manner fit for public consumption if I was not there to glare them into obedience? And, on a more practical level, would they be capable of drying themselves off sufficiently to get themselves dressed? Would they have enough attention to the task at hand to come out without leaving their bathing suits, towels and/or pants behind?

Faced with the choice between willfully ignoring the family changeroom policy for yet another three months or giving the boys the benefit of the doubt, on the first day of the session this year I sent them into the changeroom on their own and hoped for the best. (This seems to be how I make most of my parenting decisions lately. Perhaps this is a blog topic we should explore soon.)

Who knew swimming lessons could be so pleasant? Turns out the boys are entirely capable of getting dried and dressed without me shepherding them through every stage. Swim lessons are now the highlight of my week, a chloriney oasis of serenity in the madness of daily life.

We show up at the pool and I hand over their bathing suits, pointing them toward the men’s changeroom. I meet them on the pool deck, and minutes later relinquish them to the care of their instructor, while I sit quietly and read, or play with my iPhone, or stare at a place somewhere in the middle distance and breathe for minutes on end. Some days I even have time to chat idly with a friend.

At the end of the lesson, I meet them as they come dripping out of the pool and tousle them briefly with a towel before sending them back into the men’s changeroom. I then retreat to the hallway and await their transformation to moderately dry and fully dressed. WITH NO INTERVENTION ON MY PART WHATSOEVER.

This has been a transformative experience. They don’t need me to do stuff for them? They’re capable of not only behaving but staying on task for up to five solid minutes? This changes everything!

The cruel irony in all of this is that Lucas is about to start his own swim lesson journey, and my reprieve from the sweaty, damp and overcrowded hell that is the family changeroom is to be short-lived at best. But I’m thinking by the time he hits preschool, he’ll be drying his own bits and pulling on his own drawers. This mommy has had a taste of the cool, dry air of freedom, and there’s no going back now!