Is that a trick question?

Wednesday, 8:52 AM. Or thereabouts. At this point, the number’s not really important, is it? What’s important is that he’s here. He is finally, finally here, at school, despite a morning that inched along so painfully that my eyeballs hurt with the strain of keeping my brains from exploding through my face. And yet, the school insists on prolonging the agony by forcing me to go through the ritual of “signing him in.” Now, I am all for the wisdom of a quick check-in at the office, a little wave and checkmark to let them know that the transfer of care is complete and kthxbai. But they make you fill out this form, this form that on a good day would be asinine but on a morning in which my every move and strategy has been thwarted, on the morning when “parenting” is met with “counterattack,” seems just cruel.

First, as noted above, there’s the time. To reiterate: at this point, does it matter? The time is late. He’s just late. So stop asking.

Then, I have to write his name. Which wouldn’t normally be a big deal except that the space for his name is about an inch and a half long and they want me to write it with a dull, red magic marker tied to the clipboard, and this is the child of lesbians, people: he is hyphenated. By virtue of his egalitarian parents, he has a gargantuan surname, one that I am no more successful at containing in the tiny space allotted for it than I was at convincing a certain six-year-old to get dressed and eat something this morning, goddammit. And so I go over the line, encroaching into the section: “Why is your child late?”

Okay, so, you know what? There is no “why.” There is late, and there is not late, and that is it. There is no answer to this question, just as there is no answer to the question of whether, if you knew what you know now, you would do it all over again. Whatever it is — I’m not getting specific here — would you do it again? Now that you know what it’s like? Ponder that, but don’t answer it. Because there is no answer.

And yet, you have to answer. It seems, from the answers that precede yours, that there are two possible choices: “city bus” and “slept in.” I have no idea what the hell they mean by option A, and option B is laughable: we could have been awake at 4 AM and still not have arrived here on time today. One parent, several lines above me, has written “bla bla blurg.” Atta girl.

Do they really want to know? Can they handle the truth? Do they really want us to write things like (as various friends have suggested to me), “She was naked and screaming in her room when the carpool came?” Or maybe, “Couldn’t be bothered to make the morning any more miserable”? What about this: “Missed the bus after having a meltdown because I put the bananas on his oatmeal AFTER the milk when I was supposed to put them on BEFORE the milk.” Or “Spent 10 minutes frantically searching the house for the purple mittens WITH the holes because she was crying in the entryway and refusing to leave the house wearing the purple mittens WITHOUT the holes. Then spent another 10 minutes convincing her that she would have to go to school wearing the perfectly good purple mittens because I couldn’t find the holey ones. Then realized at the end of the day that they were in her backpack all along.”

Ditching honesty, I suppose I could write “Some hangovers are like that.” Or maybe get all creative and melodramatic: “Suzie couldn’t be at school on time because, well, this isn’t where I was supposed to be at this point in my life, you know what I mean? And once i started crying I couldn’t stop but now that Suzie is six she is such a good listener and she managed to pick out a blouse for me, too. sorry I’m not wearing pants.” And then sit back and wait for the call from Children’s Aid.

Whatever I write, or decline to write, it's all there between the lines anyway: the story of my deficiencies as a parent.

I left it blank.

PS: Apparently I was also late for the 2011 Blog Delurking Day, but better late than never, say I. So, I'm inviting you to the prom and I hope you'll say yes: if you've been waiting for a reason to comment here but haven't yet, today's the day! I'd love it if you dropped me a note to say hi, either in the comments or, if that's too public a forum, via the contact form.

Father's Day, two-mom style

For what may seem like obvious reasons, we don’t do a lot of fatherhood over here at Mama Non Grata. We have nothing against fathers, but in a two-mom household, they just don’t get the same airplay. Those of you who are regular readers of this blog know that a certain amount of posts, usually the ones that make people cry, are devoted to my mother, who merits her own tag. My dad — who is en route to Thunder Bay as I type this — has tended to play a supporting role.

But make no mistake about it, people: people win Oscars for supporting roles. And the fathers in my life are some serious contenders.

There’s Rob, who breaks out in hivestimes when the word “father” is used, although that doesn’t stop Rowan from testing out the word “dad” every so often. “This is my dad, Rob,” he’ll announce to anyone in the vicinity whenever Rob visits — every six to eight weeks, each December and March break, any stopovers he can finagle on other travels, month-long stays each summer. It’s not clear to me that Rowan understand entirely what “dad” means — during one of Rob’s last visits, he asked, dreamy-like, “Rob, do you have any kids?” And when Rob said, “Um, yes. Yes I do,” Rowan asked, “Are they big kids or little kids?” But it’s a name for someone special in his life, someone who shows up, as Rob does, dependably, regularly, constantly. Rob is not a 24/7 parent, but he is, increasingly, a parent, if an occasional one — someone who can be counted on to care for, to jump in and play chase, wipe a nose or a butt, make or clean up dinner, or babysit the kids for four days while their mothers go to New York City. They had a blast, apparently — I returned home to a tidy house, dinner in the crockpot, mostly unfazed children, and the ultimate parental backhanded compliment: My first evening home, Rob looked perturbed as Rowan and Isaac engaged in their usual pre-bed squawking and tussling. “They’re rangy tonight,” he said. “They’re always like this,” I replied. “Interesting,” he said: “They weren’t like this with me.”

I forgave him, though, because, well, getting to go to New York was huge — huge because I got to launch my book (more on that soon), huge because Rachel and I got to visit one of my favourite cities in the world, huge because we got to go to that city without our kids and know that they were happy, huge because it’s precedent-setting: we can go away AGAIN. Further away. For longer. Even as we mused on how much fun it would be to take the kids to Manhattan, New York was exhilarating because it marked the beginning of a new sort of freedom for us as parents: the freedom to not parent, for days on end, to be grownups not in charge of anyone but our own selves. Freedom to read a magazine in an airport lounge and then sleep on the airplane. To drink champagne on a rooftop before dinner, then go to bed at 1 AM, and not worry about having to get up the next morning.

New York was also exhilarating because my dad — proud Papa — showed up, unannounced, at my book launch. He flew in from Toronto, camera in tow, to surprise me, sprung for dinner at Prune — with celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain at the next table, no less! — and then flew home again, only to prepare to drive up north to help us celebrate Isaac’s birthday. Because, twice a year, my dad and his wife show up, unfailingly, with suitcases full of presents and bagels, for the boys’ birthdays. They also make it possible for us to fly south to see them — to Toronto and, for the past couple of years, to Florida.

So, the fathers in my life don’t see me or my sons daily, or even weekly, but they are a constant presence in our lives. They support, in every sense of that word: strong, dependable, helping us to hold up and nurture ourselves and each other. And for this, they occupy an unparalleled place in our hearts. And for this, we love them.

A Passover/Easter fable

Once upon a time, there were two small boys. And their mothers took them from their small town, where the water was not fluoridated, on a small airplane, to (as the larger of the small boys put it) The Land of Toronto, where for two nights in a row they attended enormous family dinners, during which they ran around like madmen with their cousins and ate untold amounts of sugar and watched cable television shows like American Idol and had vast quantities of fun and fell into bed at 10 p.m. without even brushing their teeth they (and their mothers) were so tired and full of glee.

They also drove all around the Land of Toronto, having adventures that involved dinosaurs and subway trains and mud puddles and several of their mothers’ Old Stomping Grounds. And it was good.

Then they went to The Small Town of Guelph, where they ate untold quantities of chocolate Easter eggs and had large family dinners and ran around like madmen with their cousins and stayed up very late watching (appropriately) Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

The children, though generally delightful, coped with the travel and the influx of sugar and the lack of sleep and the media by occasionally throwing tantrums in the presence of older relatives and eating lots of cheese strings. Their mothers coped by drinking lots of wine. Mostly, they tried to be good parents, which involved, in part, requiring the small boys to brush their teeth after two nights of not.

They took out the small boys’ toothpaste and toothbrushes, whereupon the small boys’ auntie wondered aloud why the mothers were letting the small boys use fluoridated toothpaste.

The mothers explained that the water in their small town was not fluoridated, and that their family doctor had suggested that they use said toothpaste to compensate.

The auntie again wondered out loud why the mothers were letting the small boys use fluoridated toothpaste.

The mothers again explained that the water in their small town was not fluoridated, and that their family doctor had suggested that they use said toothpaste to compensate.

The auntie again began to wonder out loud why the mothers were letting the small boys use fluoridated toothpaste, but stopped herself midsentence when she realized that she was critiquing other people’s parenting and apologized for doing so.

Just then, the larger of the two small boys walked into the room and, for no apparent reason, bonked the smaller of the two small boys on the head. The smaller boy began to cry. The larger boy left the room.

There followed an uncomfortable silence.

Then the auntie said, “Well, maybe if you didn’t let them use fluoridated toothpaste, they wouldn’t be so violent.”