WQ: Up the down slide
[I write this one not from the balanced perspective of a normal human being, but from my personal perspective as an archetypal warrior queen within a multiple system. Which, quite often (although apparently not while being copy edited!) is my truest emotional reaction, although many people cannot tell.]
If you want to rile a bunch of mothers (and I do mean mothers) of children under 8 up, apparently all you have to do is mention that you allow your child to go UP the slide.
No, seriously. This is the third such discussion I have been stupid enough to get into, in three different parenting groups/communities, and every time it seems about half the mothers take mortal offense. Possibly more than half.
Let us assume, gentle reader, that I have some sense about this. That I do not allow Noah to take 5 minutes to try to get up a slide that’s too hard while 6 kids wait at the top, jostling each other closer and closer towards the edge of the platform. That the slide in question is a fairly short straight slide and it is not that he is crab-walking up in the inside of a tube slide. Let us also assume that I do not allow him to go when it is not his turn or when there is any drama unfolding anywhere in the vicinity: a new tot cowering at the top, perhaps.
But, here’s the thing.
The slide is a piece of plastic on an incline. It works in both directions. At some of our parks, the slides even have toe holds!
And even if it does take longer to go up than to go down, although Noah’s pretty good at it, it only takes perhaps twice the time. And as far as I know, there is no time rule on the equipment. Take the swings. There is not a rule that you can only swing for ten swings or something. Why the slide has a 10 second time rule on it or something (in some people’s minds) and therefore Your Turn must be Down is beyond me.
So there’s the slide case laid out for you. This, apparently, is controversial. I think I was told… let me get this week’s quote…
“Oh no, the dreaded “We are free spirits being oppressed by you sticks-in-the-mud” people? Who knew that your child was allowed to monopolize a piece of equipment to prove his creativity and free-spiritedness while a group of children wait at the top for him to finish up so they can slide down?”
!!! (I had already laid out the group condition as above.)
This is really ridiculous. I kind of see where it probably started: we used to play shove the people off the slide/try to get up the slide at school on a long metal slide attached to an asphalt hill (I’m not even kidding) and there were plenty of black eyes and split lips. I’m sure some entrepreneurial teacher came up with the novel “only go down the slide” rule. And in a situation where the children outnumber the adults 100 to 1 (like at recess), that’s fine. School is full of senseless rules for crowd control.
But on a normal playground in a normal situation, I think it’s ridiculous. I’ll go even further: I think it’s crazy. It’s not really an unsafe way to use the slide (sure your feet can slip and you can bang your chin, but you’re really less likely to fall off than you are sliding down).
Plus, in my opinion, playgrounds are there to be scaled and conquered. They are places for children to master their controlled environment. And getting up the down slide seems to me to be one of the best ways to use that environment, actually.
It’s good for the muscles, good for coordination, reasonably safe, and as I said… it’s plastic on an incline. Kids should know these work in both directions.
Although it makes me almost sick to think about it, because I know I am going to have to let go enough to do this too, I have to say that any good relationship I have left with my body - ah, this body, raped, abused, and strangler of Emily; grower of Emily and Noah and source of sexual and sensual pleasures alike - is at least partly grounded in all the opportunities I have had in my life to “go up the slide” - to get an idea in my head and carry it out with my body.
Many of those things have not been entirely rule-following or globally safe: canoeing out into a provincial park with teen leaders and then being the teen leader; solo canoeing in choppy waters where it took 3 hours to get back against winds, where it would normally take 20 minutes. Swimming until I threw up to pass lifeguarding exams. Skinny dipping. Climbing up the shed behind the school to the roof and hanging out there with friends. Climbing down the bluffs.
Standing around making rules so that it’s always the same play, always up the stairs/ladder and down the slide, seems to me to be kind of resisting the point of outdoor free play. Which is to look at a bunch of stuff and figure out how to test one’s limits again it. Tool using primate behaviour and all that.
Also… I am trying to picture a group of men standing around making up slide rules for other people’s children (I have no objection if someone doesn’t want his or her child going up the slide). And I am failing.
No, what I think it comes down to is women who are suddenly thrust into one of the most out of control situations - childbirth and child rearing - trying to impose control. On everything. Including each other, and the slide. And I refuse to get into that. If Noah wants to go up the slide, as long as it’s in a respectful way, I’ll be right behind him every step of the way.
Better, better
Carl “cancelled” work this weekend (he did! a huge big piece will not be done!) so this means he only worked last night ’til midnight, worked 8 am - 10 am this morning, and will work tonight 6 pm - 2 am, or something like that.
This left a huge HOLE in his work schedule, known as a weekend day. So we spent it mostly together:
- went to Starbucks as a family; the scary thing is (and I am innocent! This has to do with Monday mornings!) that the conversation went like:
Noah: “Hi Bob!”
Bob the barrista: Hi Noah. What would you like?
Noah: Cake, Bob! (sings to the tune of Bob the builder) Bob barrista, can he make cake? Bob barrista, yes he can!
Bob: Lemon poppy seed?
Noah: No, raspberry!
(I sigh. No one write me to tell me how bad the cake is. I KNOW. It’s a guy thing.)
Then we went to the bank, to pick a parcell that was returned (boo) and then to Volvo. Volvo has had my car for a week. But nothing is wrong with it that they can find. So now it is mine again. I talked to managers at length but got nowhere. I am grumpy.
Then Noah fell asleep in the car (the crash after the sugar rush) and so we decided to head down to a food festival. But on the way downtown, it started to rain, so we veered northwards and went to the Ontario Science Centre. Which is why I have a membership there. We had a great time - Noah’s made some leap in development lately so that he not only likes to play in the kidspark under-8 area, but he was really into the space stuff and some of the life sciences things. And tearing around indoors, that was key. The OSC is this monstrosity of a modern building set into a valley; it is very beautiful in its own 60s or 70s way. But it must be a bear to maintain, because it has all this space to… nowhere. But for a preschooler on a rainy day, it is great.
(Also for two grownups who need to reconnect. So far I’d say this marriage can be saved! Stay tuned! Actually that’s gleeful ’cause things have been going well; slow progress, but much much more good will.)
Noah managed all this and to come home and go to the grocery store without any accidents, and this is becoming the common experience. I think we can say that, with some adult intervention around getting excited or being outside, Noah’s pretty well day potty trained (he’s not ready at night yet; he wakes up with a soaked diaper and it’s not just from the morning). I can only thank Montessori.
T-ball
In the midst of the marriage angst I have to say that Noah and I have discovered a real passion.
T-ball. We were at a birthday party last week and Noah went wild for the t-ball they had set up. And while we were shopping for favours for his party, we discovered the same t-ball set for $9.99. (This is a toddler set: what I would call a “wiffle ball” and “wiffle bat” and a plastic stand with no real bendy bits.)
Anyways, we’ve been playing it all weekend. He’s got the whole idea down of hitting the ball. And he picks teams (out of the two of us; I always get to be on his team). And he hits it and I run and get it. And sometimes I really have to run! And it’s a lot of fun.
I suck at some kinds of games. I am ok with elaborate fantasy games. And crafts, we have that covered in the system. And building stuff. But when it comes to the low-grade imagination games - the “make the train go off the tracks One Hundred Times” or the “sip tea 50 times” games I slip. My attention wanders. I try to create narratives or change the story, when really my job is to SIP THE TEA MUMMY. Do not vary it! Do not!
But t-ball, that I can handle. I don’t mind catching the ball 50 times. I’m not really a sports leader in that I really have very little idea about how to play soccer that properly or whatever (I do have basic softball/t-ball skills, and decent basketball and volleyball skills I suppose). But I like being outside moving my body around and it makes me wriggly that Noah is getting into it too. So, we played t-ball a lot this weekend.
We also went to a park around the corner that has no frontage on streets, and he RAN. And RAN. And RAN. I bet I could jog alongside him. If I would wear better shoes.
It brought back a lot of memories of walking him around the neighbourhood in the Ergo, hoping he would sleep. Those were cosy times. These are too.
Depths
Polly: Hope this one doesn’t speak to you. :)
This blog is getting a bit bi-polar in feel, and I wish I could say this did not reflect its primary author. But maybe it does. That said…
About a month ago, maybe a little longer, I was out at lunch with a friend who has known me a long time and been a listener for a lot of the ups and downs of my marriage, particularly as it relates to Carl’s workaholism. So she asked about that. And it was one of those conversations where you suddenly hear yourself saying out loud what you’ve been telling yourself inside for oh, a few years. And it sounds batshit crazy. Like oh, I am so fortunate I get an entire two hours a month with the attention of the person I love and am married to.
So I’ve been mulling this over since. Basically, that I sound crazy to myself.
And now I can post about it ’cause I brought it up with Carl, the rule being do not blog about anything that hasn’t been said in person.
Anyways… yes, life is bad on that front. Carl is really, really, really a good parent. That is not wishful thinking either. He practically bends time to spend time with Noah, and he takes care of him every morning, and he is patient and loving and all that good stuff.
And the rest of the time, he works.
And that… is pretty much it.
And I do not mean normal work. I mean a typical day goes: I get up, Noah gets up, Carl gets up and takes care of Noah (possibly while checking his computer, more often not). Then he gets working around 9:30. Maybe 2 nights a week he has a half hour for dinner. Then he works until 11 or midnight. Friday and Saturday nights he does maintenance from 11 pm - 2 am. Often things break and he spends the weekends fixing them; if we go out he is basically just putting work on hold until he gets back. He is under pressure all the time. The laptop is out all the time. The pager goes off all the time.
Oh and then since I had that conversation we’ve managed two matinees while Noah was with my parents.
I have been struggling - for years really - to be zen about it. To be zen about having the vast majority of the responsibility for home, finance, vacation plans, my own car, etc. etc. etc. To operate in a state of loving acceptance. To let go of the fact that Carl fled to Ottawa a few weeks after Emily died and worked 20 hr days (literally) while I was so sick with Noah, and then pulled back, and now is slipping into the same sort of work schedule.
I’ve told myself that it’s ok to have to do a lot of household stuff, since as a single parent I would have to do that and more. I’ve told myself that it’s not good to try to force people to change. I’ve tried to develop my own interests. I have my own relationships and circle of support, not least of which are the Eight Lives Left people. I’ve worked on not taking things out on random people on the Internet. I’ve appreciated all the time I get with Noah.
And we all know there are many things about me/us that Carl has lovingly accepted.
So it seems kind of awful in some ways to be at a place where I can no longer unconditionally accept this state of being. It’s hard to figure out what is selfish, what is my relentless drive for “more” that is so unfair to everyone. And what is real.
But I think I have come there, regardless of the unfair and the “is it me?” stuff. This isn’t working. Fair or not, it’s just not. And that’s what I talked to Carl about this weekend.
It’s so hard to know what normal might be, for us. It’s hard to know where we should be headed, even. I just know that it’s not working for me. It’s not a fundamental difference between us as people; if anything it’s more that I want, not less. But it’s been a long time since I felt good about coming home, if you separate out the parenting parts. We need to change something. And this weekend is a start I think, at least in the discussion.
But really awful too, because I never really wanted to say anything like “I can’t handle this for five more years. I’m not leaving right now. But I cannot, cannot handle it.”
It sucks for everyone. Sigh.