On the weekend, my brother-in-law asked me what era I would live in if I could choose.
My initial response was the 70’s. I liked the idea of being a hippy, free-loving flower child. He was quick to point out that the 70’s were rife with turmoil and upheaval. He suggested that the 50’s would have been a good era because of the post war boom.
While I enjoyed the thought of all those funky cars and wearing a poodle skirt, I just couldn’t stomach the idea of saddle shoes. So, I decided I could be a shoe designer in the 50’s and save them from those horrid things.
Then, today, while I was driving home from work, I was contemplating this idea once more, and here is what I decided.
How could I live in the 50’s or the 70’s when women struggled to be equals? How could I tolerate a time when black people were segregated?
I would love to live in a simpler time, to be a flower child, to go to a sock hop, but only if I could take with me some of the advancements of our time. Therein lies the rub, you cannot have one without the other.
I would gladly hand over my iPhone for a daisy chain necklace so long as my gay friends could stand proudly at the altar. I would give you my PVR in exchange for that push button converter with cords that ran to the TV if I didn’t have to take back all those bras that were burned, and I would toss aside the internet to spend time at a malt shop with waitresses on rollers skates providing no-one got pushed to the back of the bus because of the colour of their skin.
I am thankful for the people who have fought these difficult battles. I would not step back in time and forgo all the freedoms and privileges that I have been provided.
It is with thanks to women like Dr. Emily Howard Stowe, Rosa Parks, Harriet Tubman and Buffy Saint-Marie that I choose (should I be given the choice) to live in this day and time.
Siobhan is a fiercely independent baby. If she does not want to be held, she will squirm until she is put down, she is not afraid to stand in front of a room full of people, shake her booty and happily entertain herself.
This weekend was a busy one. We had a lacrosse tournament, a family lunch, a summer pool party and a family dinner to attend.
While at the lacrosse tournament, Siobhan climbed around the seats, ate chocolate buttons when the mood struck and banged loudly on the glass, yelling (I assume she was telling her brother to get his butt in gear). She chatted with the people in the stands, sipped some milk and wandered from the stands to the lobby looking for adventure. I followed her, of course, but I let her do her own thing.
She did not ask to be picked up, except when she fell and hurt herself. As a matter of fact, she pushed her sisters away when they attempted to try and hold her.
At lunch, she tried to colour like the big kids, threw crayons, crackers, food and my keys on the restaurant floor. She pointed and said “this” when she wanted something to eat and shook her head “no” when offered something she didn’t want. If there was something particularly good, she put her hands together and asked for more.
At the pool party, she ate fruit… lots and lots of fruit. She chatted with the kids, wandered around the yard, found some smarties, went swimming with Eleanor (she had a life jacket on) and played in the toy house. Once in a while, she came to see if Tom and I were still there.
At the family dinner, she had her own little buffet as my sister put her hors d’oeuvres on the coffee table right where she could reach them. We watched as she took pieces of cheese and crackers from the plates. When the music took her fancy, she shook her booty in the living room. She pet the dog, fed him cheese, told him to get out of her way and walked endlessly from kitchen to back deck to kitchen again. She was delighted when the giant bowl of berries made an appearance and she was allowed to take a few for herself.
She is 14-months old, and she amazes me every day.
Tom and I were discussing the other day how it’s different this time around because we have more time to just sit and enjoy her. You would think with 4 kids that wouldn’t be true, but that is why it’s possible. We now know how resilient they really are, and we don’t fret over little things and sit wondering if she will be okay. Instead, we assume she will be okay and focus on enjoying what she is doing.
These are just my observations from one weekend.
I will file this blog under the category “WTF” and “Things I Wish I Had Never Heard.”
Our dog, as is the case with most dogs, enjoys a good crotch sniffing. We try to dissuade him, but he persists.
So, the other day, Tom walked into the den and the dog was eye balls deep in Ethan’s crotch, but rather than pushing the dog away, Ethan was bouncing up and down.
In a move that Tom probably regrets, he asked Ethan what he was doing. His answer?
“Tea bagging the dog”
Like I said... WTF?
Printer-friendly version