Weekend / McCann kidnapping

Thanks for the vinegar tip, and the chalk. I’m trying both, plus the house is de-crumbed, even if this means washing the floor every. single. night due to Toddler. :) I also took the opportunity to finally get rid of a category of foods I will call “Noah’s starter foods no one who gets better food and has a choice would eat,” like brown rice crackers with no additional salt or flavour, and the two boxes of baby biscuits someone kindly gave us that basically are like pre-twinkies with no actual food in them. I also have 8 jars of baby food for the food bank. Not sure why I was hanging on to those.

We had a busy weekend, esp. due to the anti-ant project. I also planted a Rose of Sharon (thanks to one of Lynn’s JW friends, who has a prolific garden and gives cuttings away like mad), purchased mulch although I have yet to dig up all the @#$&*^@ lily of the valley in our yard (i.e. toddler poison) and put it down, and did other household chores. I also discovered the most wonderful trail near my house, thanks to my weekend playgroup; I’ll write about it more after we go back and I get pics.

Yesterday afternoon we had our big mother’s day celebration, that is, with my mother.  We picked a lakeside pub with a patio where Noah could get down and run around on the grass with someone (sadly in view of the playground, but he held it together with many promises that we were going there Next), and I had my first full draft of beer (16 oz) since I got pregnant with Noah.  I was sure with all the distractions and the gradual self-weaning he’s been doing that I was good for at least three hours so I went for it.

20 minutes after drinking it I was sure it was the best! Mother’s! Day! ever!  One thing about not drinking; your capacity drops so fast that one beer is a total buzz.  It was both hillarious and a little sad in that I had one of those responsibility moments… not that I think drinking around your kids is terrible; in fact I think modelling having a beer now and then is a good thing.  But really, you do need to exercise some caution and restraint and planning and in a way that’s too bad. ‘Cause I sort of wanted to sit on that patio and prolong the buzz for several hours and then stumble home. And instead it was time to go play in the playground.

(The playground was still fun.)

I got a cake at home for our own special mother’s day gift and also I took Noah’s nap on Saturday pretty much off chores (except for the mowing) to read. A book. A whole one. It was total brain candy; Citizen Girl which was passed on to me because “it’s like your company!” and… not really (no porn… well, okay there was that porn incident a few years ago…) but close enough that I did laugh.  I later felt sort of shameful that I spent quality reading time with chick lit but… I laughed. :)

My nanny V. is leaving her other job, so I’m a bit nervous she’ll only be able to find something full-time and will leave us. But the good thing is that if she can find something part-time, I can flex my hours around.  Still it’s a bit of a stress. I should probably start touring Montessoris, just in case. I think Noah and Montessori would be a good-enough match (if it were a warm, caring, perfect one) that we could move him to that. I really really do like and more importantly trust V. and it has been a very healing experience to be able to do that… but now that Noah’s older, I think I would revert to my view that more staff = less chance of abuse, etc.

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The McCann kidnapping is so tragic. I really hate how people have been blaming the parents for leaving their kids in a “hotel room” – which brings to mind the American Ramada Inn thing and not so much the inn-like setting where my reading of the story places it (I haven’t seen anything on TV, not having broadcast TV). 

It reminds me so much of the person who asked me if I thought my aquafit classes were what wrapped the cord around Emily’s neck twice.  Of course that was a stupid question and the question of how much supervision is enough is not a stupid question, but still, the “blame the parents” game never really stops.

I do hold parents accountable for a lot of things – my dad was in the room sometimes when my grandfather’s hand was down our pants and I do assign him responsibility for not paying attention to that. But the more I parent the more I realize it is such a grey area; a dance between me and Noah and the evils of the world.  I am so scared to lose him and yet I let him walk 5 feet ahead of me at the beach because he seems to need that. 

And yes, leaving your kids in a room on the grounds while you have dinner is a slightly selfish decision. But if I had three kids under 4, I might well desperately need a quiet dinner now and then. It wasn’t a great call, but it was not illogical or even that stupid.

Having said all that, the whole pedophile “kidnapped to order” thing scares me, not quite so much within Canada, but in some other countries. I see with a mother’s eyes but I do have a blonde, blue-eyed, social extrovert of a kid.  And we do hope to travel with him. So this is a good thing to be aware of, even as I know the odds are small.