Carrie Snyder | Writer

“Mother’s Day Surprise”

Monday, May 10, 2010 | Local Food, Mothering, Spirit, Yoga | 4 Comments

I made a special Mother’s Day supper for myself: blanched local bok choy and asparagus, chopped local cilantro, heated and spiced homemade frozen chicken broth, dredged tofu squares in cornstarch and fried till crispy, cooked rice noodles and rice, and brought the feast to the table. Lately, I’ve been serving meals with options. I bring the options to the table, and everyone customizes the meal to his or her liking. This has proven very popular indeed, though does mean that Fooey’s been eating a lot of rice with yogurt. This was make-your-own soup night. It was delicious. As usual, the meal was interrupted by trips to the potty (me and CJ), and so by the time I’d gotten to my second bowl, the table had emptied and I was finishing my Mother’s Day supper alone. Which isn’t the worst fate for a parent.
But then I choked. I really did. I felt something slide down the wrong tube. I stood and assumed the classic choking pose (hands to throat) and walked to the living-room. I was still coughing, but the cough seemed to be dragging the thing further down, blocking the airway almost totally. Since I couldn’t speak, I looked at Kevin, and he looked at me–with what looked to be some annoyance. Like, really, honey, you’re seriously choking? And I was like, yes, I’m seriously choking. Good thing I’m the one who took the First Aid course. Meanwhile, in the background, as I thought to myself, well this is really not the way to go, I could hear my children’s voices. Fooey and AppleApple were hollering, “If you’re going to throw up, go to the bathroom, Mommy!!!” And Albus was repeating, as if deranged, “Mother’s Day surprise! Mother’s Day surprise! Mother’s Day surprise!” These would have been the last words ringing in my ears had I not reached down my own throat and dislodged a cilantro stem. Kevin got into position (it’s not called the heimlich anymore), but I indicated that I was once again moving air into and out of my body. Things began to calm down. The scene returned to normal. But it sends me into paroxysms of hysterical laughter to recall Albus shouting, “Mother’s Day surprise! Mother’s Day surprise!” Tell me that wouldn’t make for a good line in a short story. Where did the kid get his dark sense of humour? (I couldn’t get him to parse afterward why he’d landed on that phrase. He said he knew I wasn’t dying, so that’s why he said it).

To commemorate Mother’s Day (though not the choking incident specifically), after supper, I took a few photos with the kids for the 365 project. I’ve started calling it my 365. As in, I haven’t taken my 365 yet today. Which I haven’t. But I have gone to yoga class. I’m not sure I would have made it this morning had CJ not woken three times between 3am and 5:30am, and when I convinced him to return to bed after the last nursing session, I got up, ate a banana, gathered my gear, and escaped. I thought, at least if he wakes up again, I won’t be here to have to fetch him. He only agrees to let Kevin help if I’m nowhere in sight. And then I was so glad I’d gone to class, despite only five hours of broken sleep. Moving while breathing, in a room of other people moving while breathing. It’s a good solitary/yet not-solitary ritual. I’ve now gone to seven classes in eight days as part of the studio’s fifteen day challenge. It’s been easier than it likely sounds. But our family’s schedule is so busy that I can’t find time to go again till Wednesday, early morning. My best discovery during this process has been that I love practicing first thing in the morning. I’m weaker, less flexible, and it’s harder to balance, but I don’t push myself quite so hard either. I’m kinder to myself first thing in the morning. And I’m closer to sleep, so I’m closer to that dreamy in-between meditative state. It’s been easy to find that quiet mind in every class this past week, but sometimes I wonder whether I’m now practicing on auto-pilot. Is it a good thing to go away from myself so thoroughly, to be lost in the moment, to be mindless? I’m emptying my mind during that hour and a half practice–with what am I readying it to be filled?

:::

Last night, for our Sunday-night movie, Kevin and I watched No Impact Man. It is an inspiring and entertaining film, and what makes it really good is the dynamic between husband and wife. The premise is that the husband (a writer) wants to write a book about living a year with no environmental impact whatsoever, a pretty much impossible experiment, but one into which he throws himself, and his family comes along for the ride too. He and his wife (also a writer) have one young child, about CJ’s age in the movie, and live in New York City in a small apartment that’s perhaps on the ninth floor. They stop using elevators, subways, cars. They stop eating out, and only eat local food. They give away their television. They buy next-to-nothing, and nothing new (including toilet paper). As the experiment progresses, they do with less and less, including no electricity. They wash their clothes in the bathtub with homemade laundry soap. The wife is not a typical environmentalist, and her voice makes the movie refreshing. She sneaks off to get her hair dyed, and needs needs needs coffee. It actually ends up being a dynamic and moving portrait of a marriage. Going off to bed, I wondered what more I could be inspired to do. The idea of giving everything away actually makes sense. It is so hard to go by half-measures. The things that jump to mind for me are … well, honestly, this computer. Can I put limitations of my computer use–would I bide by them–or would it be easier just to close it up and put it out of sight, use it only during working hours? There is some freedom to that thought. On the other hand, this computer is my main form of communication. I would hate to go back to relying on the telephone, a medium I’ve always disliked. Or a real radio, rather than internet radio.
But, I’m going to think about it.

Why Are There No Women Who …

Friday, May 7, 2010 | Exercise, Feminism, Mothering, Swimming, Work | 2 Comments

A recurring issue that’s been troubling me, lately: my children have begun asking why there are no women who … fill in the blank. Why are there no women who play hockey (in the NHL, in the playoffs, which are on every evening at our house). Why are there no women who coach kids’ soccer (thankfully, we found some women coaches to counteract that observation; but it’s still mostly true. It’s mostly dads out there on the field). I’m trying to think of another example of “no women who …” but can’t offhand. Anyway, it’s a good question. It reminds me that we aren’t, exactly, who we claim to be, as a society. Our relentless message is that girls can do anything, be anything, choose anything; and while it’s essentially true, there’s no counter-conversation about why so many girls/women don’t, and what, if anything, we should do about it.

If girls (and boys) can do anything, why, for example, are little girls supposed to wear pink and like fairies and princesses, and little boys supposed to wear dull colours and make truck noises and wrestle? Why are these gender differences so strongly endorsed, to the point of making little boys who once liked flowers and pink refuse to wear them lest they get teased for being different, and little girls, who once could care less what they wore, feel they must pay attention lest they get shunned for being different?

And, yet, there are some very real differences. For example, as AppleApple has observed, most women are not as physically strong as most men.

(In our family, we have one boy who makes very loud weaponry sound effects and who never took interest in any doll ever given to him; one girl who chooses her brother’s hand-me-downs over her own girlie options, most days, and who doesn’t like “princessy games”; one girl who would wear ruffled pink in perpetuity and who likes looking at pictures of fairies; and one boy whose favourite colour is pink, who pushes a stroller and gently tucks his doll in, and who likes to growl and pretend to be a crocodile attacking his older siblings. How much have they chosen for themselves, and how much has been chosen for them?).

Yes, a girl can grow up to be anything she wants to be. It shocks my children to imagine that this were ever otherwise; yet for most of human history, a girl could not grow up to be anything she wanted to be. Now, she really can. I do believe that. But just because she can, doesn’t mean she will. And the evidence does not match up with the story the kids are being told. They see it. It makes them wonder. Why are there so few women in any snapshot of world leaders? I am excited for this summer’s World Cup, but also realize, looking through my daughters’ eyes: there will be no women playing. And there is nothing comparable to point them toward. Thank heavens, they were able to see themselves reflected in our Olympians.

I haven’t done anything to change the balance, either. I had a good job before I started having children. Then I stayed home with them. That was nine years ago. I have benefitted from the unquestionable luxury of being a women who chooses to stay home with her children, supported financially by a willing and able husband. I don’t feel regret or guilt about my decision, and we’ve always looked at ourselves as a partnership, and continue to work toward an ideal balance of childcare and work, and domestic duties and pursuit of outside interests; but out of strict financial necessity, his work trumps mine. It has to. Would I have it any other way? Well, this is what I wanted to do. I got to choose, and I’m glad for it. It was a privilege to take this path. Many people would like to, and cannot, for a variety of reasons.

:::

But, man, sometimes I would just like to go off to work in the morning, and leave someone else in charge. Someone else to do the daily laundry. Think up and prepare the daily meals. Schedule the appointments, contain the domestic minutiae.

Someone else could walk to school with an eager four-year-old and a fractious and contrary two-year-old who insists, simultaneously, on not riding in the stroller and not walking beside it. So we’re standing halfway up the hill, on a busy street, engaging in a mental tug-of-war … “Come on, honey. Keep walking. Or I’ll have to strap you into the stroller. Come on, sweetheart. We’re going to be late. We’re already late. This is driving me crazy. The kids will be waiting. I don’t want to have to strap you in. You need to walk, or else I’ll have to …” And on and on and on, inching, lurching forward, sometimes at full tilt, then coming again to a standstill, till finally the inevitable happens and we are so late that he must be strapped in (screaming hysterically) and I am running–and still arrive late. “Why were you late?” “I’m sorry. Do you remember that we have swimming after school today?” “I won’t go. I hate swimming.” “We have to go.” “But I won’t. I just won’t. I hate everything.” “Would you like a banana muffin? We baked them this morning.” [Translation: two-year-old howled for more chocolate chips while four-year-old and her friend mixed and poured batter all over the counter this morning]. Eldest daughter emerges, at last, very late. She’s holding a gigantic car constructed of recyclables: of all the days to bring home this project. “I don’t think you can carry that all the way to swimming, do you? Can you store it on your desk and bring it home tomorrow? Do you want a muffin?” She chooses to carry it. We’re late. We walk fast. She falls far behind. “I’m still not going swimming,” says the eight-year-old. “Okay, if you really don’t want to, you can wait for us in the stands, but unfortunately, I do have to go in with your little brother.” Silence. “Another muffin?” “I guess I’ll have to go then.” Two-year-old attempting stroller escape, thwarted by intrepid four-year-old, balancing precariously, with arms and legs akimbo to block all exit routes. More howls. More, “Maybe you could put that car in your backpack and rebuild it later?” More, “I hate this. This is stupid.” Finally, our destination. Eldest daughter races off to the bathrooms. We wait. We’re late. She’s back. We enter a changeroom. We’ve forgotten a hair elastic. Eldest daughter races to stroller to find one. We wait. Still late. She’s back. Two-year-old now naked. “Do you have to pee?” Yup, and he’s considering the floor. “Please, please, please don’t pee on me,” someone else could mutter while racing for the bathroom clutching naked two-year-old. On the way, observe the mother with two older children who has driven here instead of walking, talking quietly to her offspring, guiding them toward the pool with preternatural calm. Return with successfully toileted two-year-old to changeroom where own offspring are fighting over who should sit where. “I might have to start cursing,” someone else could say. “What does that mean?” “Nothing. I’ll tell you later. When we aren’t stuck in a public changeroom with holes at the top of the walls, and the judgement of strangers to guide us otherwise.” We emerge, eventually, store items in locker, trip over one another, why is everyone always standing exactly blocking the direct route to anything? Finally. Pool.

This is only half of the tale.

Now, wouldn’t it be nice to have someone else do that instead? Wouldn’t it? Or, maybe not. It is good material, after all.

:::

It’s what I do.

And this afternoon, someone else (our babysitter) is walking to school on my behalf … in the rain, no less. I almost want to stop her before she heads out the door and say, go on home, I’ll do it, don’t worry. It’s my job.

Today

Wednesday, May 5, 2010 | Writing, Yoga | 0 Comments

I want to tell you about today. I got up early, again. I was home from yoga before 8 0’clock, and said to Kev, “I feel like I already had my first cup of coffee.” (Then I went and had it anyway, because nothing beats that first cup of coffee). The wind is strong today, so is the sun, the sky is swept blue. CJ and his little friend played all morning with our new babysitter, and all was well. And I worked on a story. It is refreshing and sweet and delicious to be working simply for the sake of doing it, not toward a paycheque, though that may sound odd (and working toward a paycheque has its own set of pleasures, I might add). But to write just because of the words … nothing beats that. I’m not romanticizing. I don’t think.

In early afternoon, CJ and I ran errands uptown, then stopped for gelato and coffee, and he read books on the floor in his red sunhat and blue rainboots, and I sat quietly. Thinking. I did not feel distracted. I did not feel restless. I felt at peace. And the words that came to me right then were: I’m already doing what I’m meant to be doing.
:::
Wait, need to edit that last sentence. Who knows what I’m meant to be doing. Not me, that’s for sure. But I’m already doing what I want to be doing.

New Routine

Monday, May 3, 2010 | Baking, Cooking, Yoga | 0 Comments

A new Monday, a new routine. I got up early and went to a yoga class, and was home in time to pluck CJ out of his crib. Which was fortunate timing because he’d just started to howl (and to refuse everyone else’s offer of help) upon being informed by a friendly sister that I was at “hot yoga.”

“Mama, no go a hot yoga!” he yelled at me.

“I’m already back!” I said, not quite believing it myself. Starting today, I shall attempt for two weeks to get up early. Two weeks seems a reasonably ambitious goal for a woman who has been a night owl for the better part of two decades. Even infants and toddlers could not make me like getting up early (though I did what I had to do). Maybe getting up early without infants and toddlers will do the trick.

:::

The oven was on all weekend. Four loaves of ordinary sandwich bread thrown together on Saturday; plus one secret chocolate cake for my mom’s birthday party yesterday (using up the last of the beets, which imparted to the cake a rootier flavour than usual; not actually that sad to see the last of them after a winter of seasonal eating). Sunday, I whipped up four quiches (with spring asparagus and spinach!) for the birthday lunch; and in a late afternoon session, made granola, then chocolate chip cookie bars. My weekend discovery: baking and cooking have become second nature, and no longer require the thinking and planning they once did. I bake bread like I’m reciting the times tables. I peel potatoes and measure spices and gauge what’s lacking in the soup instinctively, which allows me to do it even when I’m exhausted, or less than inspired, or distracted, or engrossed in a radio show. Thank goodness for the radio. CBC radio one, to be specific. My beloved kitchen companion.

:::

A new week, new routine. CJ will attend an extra morning at nursery school. Our new babysitter will fetch the kids from school on Friday afternoons. I will yoga in the early morning. And soccer will dominate our evenings, and Saturday mornings. I am brainstorming picnic food, consume-in-transit food, make-in-advance food. Tonight’s menu: Wendy’s BIG pasta salad; and roll-up sandwiches on tortillas which the kids will customize to their liking, and bring along to AppleApple’s first soccer practice. (Planned toppings: egg salad, tuna salad, spinach, cheese, peppers and cukes).

:::

One last tidbit: Soccer in the park started on Saturday, and despite the rain–and, worse, the ominous rumblings of thunder in the distance–we had a good turn-out, and a great practice and game. Most fun–and unexpected–was seeing Fooey participate, fling herself into the gang, elbow her way out of a crowd, and kick the ball all the way down the field to the net. Next up, sending CJ out on the field, too. Hey, he’s got a good solid boot on him.
:::
P.S. Photos added after text. The first was taken in our backyard, which is beyond paradise right now. This is its peak flowering season. Be alert for fairies. The second photo is from the party, taken by AppleApple (she took a ton of photos, and many of them were strikingly composed). This is her gift for her grandma: a doll that she sewed herself, inside a bag that she also sewed herself. These projects are entirely of her doing, from inspiration to completion. I don’t even help her thread the needle.

Different

Friday, Apr 30, 2010 | Exercise, Family, Play, Swimming | 3 Comments

Our family meeting was so good, yesterday, that I was buzzing for hours afterward. It wasn’t that we’d solved problems or perfected the use of the talking stick (NO TALKING STICKS! was my decree). It was that we talked. There was conversation. Back and forth. Ideas flowing.
It all started earlier in the day, when I picked the kids up from school for swim lessons. If we walk fast, we can just get to the pool in time. I had fresh-made banana muffins to offer to grumpy eight-year-olds, pining for play dates.
“This is the worst day ever! I hardly have any time to play with my friends!”
Mondays and Wednesdays (and Fridays, sometimes, too) are days we currently keep free for after school play dates. Tuesdays are music days. Thursdays are swimming. And those days are also family time.
“But it’s not like we’re really together, is it? It’s not like real family time.”
No, not during the actual in-the-pool swim time. But let me assure you, we’re really together the rest of the time, and it really is family time. Walking to the pool and then home afterward underlined the togetherness of the venture. There we were, walking and talking, talking and walking. It’s an elemental combination. One of my closest and longest friendships has revolved around walking and talking. We walk, we talk. The forward motion can contain silences, time for reflection, emotion, quiet, bursts of energy and laughter and ideas.
There is no time of silence when walking with four children; but what interesting subjects have occasion to emerge. On the way home, AppleApple put on the winter hat I’d brought (one for everyone, though most declined). We passed a young woman on the sidewalk. Whether or not she noticed AppleApple’s winter hat/spring t-shirt combo, I cannot say, but AppleApple certainly noticed the young woman, and kind of cringed and hunched. And then she said to me: “I feel sort of embarrassed, Mom.” She was puzzled by the emotion. It was almost as if it were new to her, and she was newly discovering and feeling something unexpected and uncomfortable. She was embarrassed to be seen wearing a winter hat on a spring evening.
What an amazing opportunity to open a conversation about our emotions–embarrassment in particular–and how they can shape (or not!) what we choose to do. “Do you feel chilly without your hat? Would you like to keep wearing it?” Yes. “So keep wearing it.” I hope I didn’t head down Lecture Lane, but I was thrilled to be talking with my kids, in the most organic way possible, about peer pressure, being different, feeling different, and the multitude of embarrassing moments in their futures that could alter their behavior, or that they could recognize and resist. One of the most wonderful things about growing up is realizing that embarrassment is so often a projection of one’s own fears and anxieties–“what if she thinks I look stupid in my hat?”–and having the confidence and self-assurance not to change, if we’re happy doing what we’re doing. Most of the time, other people are thinking nothing of the sort (except, maybe, other teenagers; I’m not sure; I remember that being a pretty judgmental phase in my life). Most of the time, other people don’t really notice, or don’t notice to the degree that one imagines. All of this self-consciousness is heightened during the teen years–years of self-discovery, when it is both necessary and painful to examine oneself in depth and superficially, to scrutinize and question and experiment, to learn Who Am I?
We didn’t get into that. I told some funny stories from my childhood about feeling embarrassed. I warned them that embarrassment would be a sensation all the more acute and frequent in the years to come, and asked them to tell me if I were ever embarrassing them (they couldn’t imagine it! Ha!), and promised that I would never deliberately try to embarrass them … but that it might happen anyway.
And, then, this came out. Albus said: “Sometimes I feel embarrassed when the other kids in my class talk about Wii and they don’t talk to me about it, because they know I don’t have one.” He had a new friend over on Wednesday (play date day), and his new friend asked whether he had a Wii, and Albus had to say no. “Did you have fun playing together?” Yes. “Do you think he’d like to come back and play again sometime soon?” Yes. “Do you think he liked you less because you didn’t have a Wii?” No.
At our family meeting, we revisited the topic: being different, having a Wii or choosing not to. Fooey said she’d rather not have one, because then they might always want to play it (the child knows her cravings, too–she LOVES tv, and knows how hard it is to turn it off). AppleApple said we could always play at C&K’s house (uncle and aunt-to-be). Albus pointed out that if we did get one, we could stick to rules about how often the Wii would be played. Both Kevin and I were of two minds. I do think our family would be able to set limitations and stick to them. But the larger and more important point, to me, tends in a different direction altogether: why not be different? Why not be the house on the block where friends come over and play outside? (Plus, in our tightly-knit ‘hood, we’re not the only house on the block with no Wii; it’s just that this year, Albus has been separated from his best buds at school, and has had to adapt to the wider population of kids).
Coincidentally, I’d just read a report yesterday that the AVERAGE DAILY screen time for Canadian kids is SIX HOURS. And on weekends, that goes up to SEVEN HOURS. (That includes computer, tv, gaming systems).
Why not take a small stand against that, as a family, and just go without? It felt, by the end of our conversation, that everyone was willing to think about the larger implications of the choice. Childhood is so short. There is only so much time to play, and to play creatively. When I think of those kids digging that massive hole in our backyard, and the immensity of fun that was had, the enthusiasm, the dreaming and planning, the dirt, the physical labour, the cooperation … I think, yes! More of that, please! My own childhood was blessed with outdoor play, mess-making, freedom, imaginary play, and a connection to the natural world that was so natural I took it for granted.
:::
Different. It’s okay. It’s better than okay. To be unique is to be a human being. To be confidently, happily, creatively, serenely, humorously, vividly, acceptingly and compassionately unique is to be a content human being.

Maybe you’ll eat ice cream with chopsticks (as per AppleApple, above, at last night’s family meeting; yesterday, they learned about China, and the three children in her class who came from China taught everyone how to eat with chopsticks).

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About me

My name is Carrie Snyder. I work in an elementary school library. I’m a fiction writer, reader, editor, dreamer, arts organizer, workshop leader, forever curious. Currently pursuing a certificate in conflict management and mediation. I believe words are powerful, storytelling is healing, and art is for everyone.

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