Black What?! Are you really listening?!

A while ago, one of my friends and I had an interesting conversation. We thought we were talking about our favourite show and then we realized that she was talking about Black-ish and I was talking about Blacklist (without “The” article). It was amazing how we were listening so intently and yet, we were listening to most likely our own excited voices!

 

And anyone who has seen both the shows will know that it is very challenging to confuse one with the other. I did end up watching a couple of episodes of Black-ish after that and I was enlightened.

 

A few days ago, it was the season finale of The Blacklist. A few minutes in and actors from the show started popping up on my TV screen in quarantine mode. I was a little disoriented and then found out that the production on the last episode was abruptly interrupted by stay-at-home orders. So, the team managed to add missing footage in graphic novel style and complete the episode. The result was quite stunning. I appreciated the fact that many brilliant minds put that episode together and that they got to wrap up the season for their audience.

 

I felt like I needed to share this with Hans. I want the boys to always think of solutions to problems without focusing too much on the obstacles in the way.

 

Hans was impressed with the smooth transitions from live action footage to graphic novel style animation and vice versa. I hope he got the message I was trying to pass onto him. We have been watching a lot of shows together. I take every opportunity to pause at times and check in with him to make sure he understands what is happening on the screen. If there are subtitles, it is a wonderful chance to quiz the boy and add to his vocabulary. I want him to be an active viewer - observe the subtleties and question the atrocities!

 

It was quite nice when Hans noticed that, in an ad, they used lesbians when they talked about flirting again! Now, he actually looks for fair representation of all cultures, races and sexual orientations in anything he watches.

 

As the boy turns 12 tomorrow, I am happy to say that he is on his way. He is not perfect. He still pees with the seat down and I find myself cautiously wiping the seat each time I plunk myself on it! He plays basketball with wads of tissue, and later, I find one or two strewn behind the garbage bin! Finally, just before he goes to bed, he talks excitedly from his room while I am brushing my teeth in the washroom and I can barely hear him! (For a good reason, I never want to confuse Black-ish with Blacklist with him!)

 

All of Hans’ imperfections seem to be connected in a strange way to the washroom! I did not realize that until I listed them above. However, they are problems with solutions!

 

I just need to pause in real life and remind him to be an active lifer!

 

MD 2020

Today, I cooked for ASid and Mary. Craigley was kind enough to drive me to Mississauga to drop off the food for the kids. It was wonderful to see them both.

 

Craigley, initially, thought it was silly that I was making the effort. It is expected, in Craigley's conventional books, that the children make the effort on Mother’s Day.

 

I think Mother's Day is about making moms happy ... doesn't matter who puts in the effort.

 

Today, my friend C called to wish me. She has been the only one who has been very consistent with texting, calling and driving by to wave to Hans and me!

 

She shared about her boys, both younger than Hans, making her coffee and breakfast. She was super happy. After the call ended, Hans expressed regret for doing nothing for me!

 

I told Hans that he doesn't have to do anything special for me for Mother's Day - he makes every day of the year special by simply being himself!

 

We have been under stay-at-home orders for about 8 weeks or so, and Hans has had one small meltdown in that entire time for which he apologized almost immediately.

 

I feel lucky, as always, for the children I have. ASid is a young man now. Hans is growing up so quickly.

 

Today, I was reminded of another young man whom I saw grow up right in front of my eyes - my brother Bambino. He dropped off breakfast for me this morning. My brother is not a nurse, a doctor, or a firefighter; however, he is an essential worker who has been reporting to work every single day while I have the luxury of staying at home and feeling safe.  Bambino has also been grocery shopping for our parents and dropping by to check on them. He makes my mom very proud. He cooked and dropped off dinner for her today. I am positive, at some point in the day, he did something special for the mother of his child as well.

 

Mother's Day is all about doing what we can to make mothers feel loved. Mothers don't really require too much really. Small deeds of kindness, in whatever little packages they are wrapped in, go a long way!

 

May, the Fourth

This year, on May 4^th, Hans was disappointed that he couldn’t physically visit a LEGO store. I let him know that we could visit the online store and look at some deals and maybe even make a purchase or two. The boy was super excited.

 

While he was waiting to finish his school work before he could visit one of his most favourite websites, I was waiting to hear back from my doctor about my test results.

 

My doctor called at 7:11 pm. It wasn’t entirely good news. Hans too was experiencing technical difficulties with the LEGO store online. He was getting frustrated and worried that he would miss out on a particular deal.

 

There were three concerns identified with my health, the worst was testing positive for the Rheumatoid Factor. What it means is that I most likely have Rheumatoid Arthritis and I need to consult with a specialist. This is an autoimmune disease and I am stuck with it forever. However, it can be managed by life style changes.

 

Hans was also optimistic that he would access a deal before the end of the day. And he did! Just a little after 10:30 pm, we were able to place an order for something that could possibly arrive sometime in September. It didn’t matter. The boy was happy.

 

However, Hans’ mom went to bed wallowing in self-pity. The only person she wanted to speak with was her friend KPF. He lives each day of his life with Cystic Fibrosis. How does he do that?

 

The next day, out of the blue, KPF sent me a text message about a new drug that is allowing him to manage his cough and shortness of breath better. He was excited about this development. I was astounded by the timing of his message. The one person I needed to connect with reached out to me! And he reached out to me with positive news!

 

KPF is perhaps the best example I know of a human being. I always feel that it is so unfair that he has CF. However KPF never makes a fuss over it nor draws any attention to himself because of it! He just lives his life.

 

That’s what I need to do. Live each day without making the disease the focus of my life. There are several fires to put out. What if Hans had been unable to connect to LEGO online on an exciting day? He would have been disappointed, but would have moved on. So we can miss the deal of the day or even the deal of a lifetime. Fortunately, there is another day and life goes on.

 

Gummies win the war!

In the last few weeks, we have embraced a new routine. We no longer shop for groceries and incidentals over the weekend, we shop smack dab in the middle of the week - on Wednesdays! We shop at 2 grocery stores - a regular Canadian and an ethnic one that is not related to Craigley’s or my heritage or backgrounds. At Metro, Craigley waits in the car while I quickly shop for staples like eggs, bread, milk and juice. At the other store, Craigley and I both walk in and go through our own individual lists. While I focus on fruits, vegetables and family needs, Craigley picks up ice cream, chips and gummies. Craigley mostly shops for Hans and himself.

At this point in time, ASid is not even a footnote on our lists as he is elsewhere and doing really well.

When we come back home from grocery shopping, I try to wipe down items and try to put them away. Craigley, on the other hand, can’t wait to show his loot to Hans and gloat over the new additions to their candy collection. Both father and son are mostly excited about the gummies. They have tried in vain to get me to join their gummie gang. This was one battle I refused to lose. I cannot stand the texture of gummies in my mouth.

I guess the duo didn’t really care as my winning the battle simply meant a larger portion of gummies for each one of them.

While all this was unfolding over a few weeks, my search for a new family doctor resumed recently. After a “meet and greet” with my newly assigned family doctor over the phone, I was asked to take 2000 iu of Vitamin D per day. This was prescribed for the pain I have been feeling. I was also asked to get blood work done to better understand why I am falling apart. It felt good that I was finally going to have some answers.

Yesterday, on the grocery shopping spree, I added a short stop at Shoppers Drug Mart to pick up Vitamin D. To my surprise, most of the vitamins were gone and Vitamin D appeared like a must-have or something! I guess it makes sense for Canadians to seek some sunshine in other ways when instructed to stay at home as much as possible. Even as I felt dejected at the thought of walking out without my own bit of sunshine, I spotted a bottle of Vitamin D on the lowest shelf, at the very end of the Vitamins’ aisle. When I grabbed the bottle, I was dismayed!

My new normal now includes chewing 2 gummies, each loaded with 1000 iu of Vitamin D, per day.
 

20 years ago ...

Craigley and I were married on April 16, 2000. We had parents, siblings and friends attend the ceremony. We planned for a backyard event; however ended up in a room, cramped together, as it rained quite heavily that day. There is some truth to those April showers!

In the last 20 years, we had a lot happen - good times and bad times; amazing times and annoying times; times we’d live through again and times that we should definitely forget!

This post is not about Craigley and me. It is about giving some practical advice to the boys. They have their own notions about a marriage. ASid has actually expressed a desire to get married some day and have children. Hans has indicated that he is happy to be an uncle to ASid’s kids and not marry at all!

A marriage is really a lot of work. It involves a lot of adjusting.

On an aside, Smoggie once wrote to me that I make a marriage sound like a trip to the chiropractor!

Maybe I do. But I’d rather the boys start there. Marriage is not a notion I want them to take lightly. I want them to dwell on it before they jump into it. Craigley and I jumped into it. It all happened rather quickly and that’s why perhaps I mention adjustments! We were 2 strangers who had to get to know each other and make our commitment to each other work. I guess we did. We are still together after 20 years!

I wish the boys happy lives with or without that special someone. We make our choices and when they make theirs, there should be no regrets.

Only Hope

I just finished working on my 18^th feature for the local magazine that I write for. I can’t believe I have been a content coordinator for a year and a half! It has been an amazing ride.

This feature was challenging as I couldn’t do a face to face interview and it was also emotional as it was about the young mother who passed away last October. This is a keepsake issue for her daughter who will be celebrating Mother’s Day without her mom for the first time. Hopefully, the tribute feature helps in some way …

This particular issue of the magazine also had very little content. The publisher posted a request for local school children, “isolating” at home, to contribute a few words. We got nothing! In desperation, I approached Hans and confided that he was my only hope and I would like him to write something for the magazine. His response was as follows:

“I have been waiting for the day when I am your only hope.”

That was an interesting and somewhat strange response. However, the boy decided to write a few words for me.

Hans has never liked writing and it is a struggle to get him to write more than 5 sentences for an assignment when the minimum requirement is at least 3 paragraphs!

The May issue will include Hans’ first published work. He wrote just a little under 250 words - too many for Hans! The word count does not matter. The boy came through for me in a big way.

If ever again my only hope is Hans, I would consider myself lucky!

 

I Exist to Support You

We brought ASid home on March 21st. I was happy to have all 4 of us back under the same roof again. I will not say "happy to be together again"! We weren't together really - ASid was on the top floor doing his online learning; Hans was on the main floor trying to do some learning and Craigley was in the basement working from home. I had no floor to my name and I was essentially a floater!

Still, I was content to see their faces whenever they surfaced for biological or survival needs.

Last week, ASid announced that he would like to spend time with his girlfriend once his online lessons wrap up! I wasn't sure what he meant by that! Well, he clarified that he wanted to spend the remaining amount of "stay at home/isolation time" with her.

My first response was an emotional breakdown! I felt like I didn't matter. All that time I spent raising the boy meant nothing to him! I cried a bit and couldn't sleep for a couple of nights. Then, I had to look at it from ASid's perspective. He is 18 and in love. His girlfriend is an international student who is by herself in the middle of an unexpected situation. It made sense for him to be there for the girl (whom I am going to call Mary from now on).

I met Mary only twice. My impression of her is that she is a mature and focused young lady. Her family is in another country and she is here by herself (save for an uncle and a cousin who don't live with her). Given that she has been in Canada only about 7-8 months, she has adjusted very well. Mary is both academic and social, and balanced!

I am sane enough to know that she is a wonderful influence on my son.

So, Craigley dropped off ASid at Mary’s place yesterday. The only advice Craigley ever gave ASid that matters in the big scheme of things is this: “Do not get a girl pregnant”. That was it - 6 words of wisdom! I did not provide any advice, but bought the boy a pack of condoms the last time he left home. One could say that I enabled him in one way so he was disabled in another way that would practically support Craigley’s advice. I do not want to think about it really. But if there is a baby at the end of it all, I would like to conclude that it was Immaculate Conception. That’s why the name Mary brings me comfort on many levels!

Seriously though … I have to believe that when “stay at home” was not trending and I stayed at home, I did a decent job of parenting ASid. He is currently working on maintaining a 3.7-3.8 GPA and he seems to have caught the fancy of an intelligent girl. I am proud of the young man he has become. I must focus on that right now.