The best mother’s day gift I got this year wasn’t wrapped. It wasn’t the yellow painted hand print made by the girl in kindergarten. It wasn’t the small box lovingly decorated with puffy flower stickers by the boy at preschool. It wasn’t even the breakfast served to me in bed on a large wooden tray. A breakfast of pancakes and oatmeal that the kids had discussed and debated all week.
The best gift was my sister.
My sister got in a car and drove over two hours to see us. She stayed up late into the night talking with me and then woke much early than she normally would to be lavished with hugs and kisses by the kids. She read them books. She admired their drawings. She watched them all day so that the husband and I could wander off into the bright sunshine hand in hand.
Time alone between the husband and I doesn’t happen often enough. We have a babysitter with a standing babysitting night; two hours every two weeks for which we hand over a fistful of money. Otherwise our time alone involves kids asleep upstairs, a messy house and our own exhaustion.
My sister gave us time. We took full advantage of it. We walked the city streets and watched the ducks swimming the sparkling waters of the Rideau Canal. We talked about the past. We talked about the future. Some of the conversations were hard. Some were hopefully. All were uninterrupted.
It was the best Mother’s Day and I spent it without my kids. I spent as I would have years ago back when it was just the two of us. I spent it knowing the kids would swarm us as soon as we got home.
Thanks to my sister.
I write the words in her notebook. All of them. Each word printed on the list she brings home from school.
I flip the pages as I write, looking back and forth, composing the sentences in my head. I combine the words in ways that seem logical. “I like bats.” “See the dog on the mat.” “My cat is not a pig.” Sentences fill the page.
Sometimes I write a story about all of us. A story about her family. And the cats. I never forget the cats.
She reads each word carefully to me, sounding out each letter one by one until she can string them together. I listen attentively, correcting her now and then. It’s the vowels that are the trickiest. U and I and E.
I date each page as I fill it. A record of her reading.
Beside me on the picnic table the kids watch the tennis game being played on the other side of the chain link fence. Who winning? the boy asks. I don’t know I tell him. I think they are, says the girl, the ones with the white shirts. Maybe I say.
I explain the game the best I can. They are much more interested than I had anticipated when I had suggested stopping on our walk home from the park. All I had hoped for was to waste a few minutes in this last hour before the husband arrives home.
The kids swarm the dog that passes by, making the owner stop as they gush over the puppy and stroke her fur. Him friendly dog? the boy wants to know. Does he like kids? the girl asks. Not usually, the owner replies, but she seems to like you.
The ball is whacked back and forth across the net and we continue to watch the doubles match. Yes! yells the boy as one player misjudges and hits the ball into the net. Ha! the boy adds for good measure. I wonder exactly how much the players can hear out on the court. The guffaw from a woman sitting on a park bench in front of the gate in response to my suggestion that we shouldn’t laugh at the players when they make a mistake because they might feel bad about it confirms that anyone within a hundred foot radius can hear our conversation.
I want to go for ice cream. The girl abruptly changes the subject. No, I say not bothering to look away from the game. If you don’t let me go for ice cream then…then I won’t eat your muffins. She crosses her arms in front of her chest for emphasis.
Fine I say, calling her bluff. Considering she’s already eaten two of the delicious blueberry muffins I had made earlier in the day her threat carries no weight.
Her attempts at persuasion don’t end. I just smile as I listen to the sound of the small green ball whizzing back and forth over the kids’ combined pleas.
I am surrounded by sounds. They float past me in the air, strung together like a red ribbon dancing in the breeze. I watch them emerge out of mouths and hover suspended around me. Sometimes I am struck by their existence. That our throats and mouths can make these sounds that let us understand each other. Other times I dream about grabbing the red ribbon and unraveling it until nothing is left but a pool of thin thread abandoned by my feet.
I search for the serendipity in these moments. The boy on one side sounding out the names of the pictures printed on the paper in front of him. The girl on the other sounding out the letters of the words on the lists she brings home from school. Me, in the middle, biting my tongue to prevent the correct sounds from emerging from my own mouth before they have the chance to arrive there themselves.
We are all together on this journey. I tell them that. Your job is to practice saying your sounds I tell the boy who is working so hard that I spent the first few weeks of his speech therapy sessions blinking back my tears as he struggled to repeat the sounds asked of him. Your job is to practice reading your words I tell the girl who is working so hard not only on her reading but also, and more importantly, to be patient with herself.
Some evenings I collapse on the couch, exhausted from the sounds that have surrounded me all day. Tired from teaching and correcting and modeling the never-ending sounds.
Today I found myself sticking my tongue between my teeth as if with that very act I can will the boy standing across the room with his therapist to articulate the “th” in bath. But he doesn’t. Instead I mouthed the word while I watched him trip over the placement of his tongue.
I am thankful for their interest in the sounds they are learning to make. They both rise to meet the challenges, confident in their beliefs in themselves. Each night they are eager to learn more and try harder the next day.
It is only me who longs for a moment, maybe two, when the only sounds I hear are silence.
I shake my head. He pulls back the soggy rice paper wrap clutched in his hands and shoves half into his mouth, chewing absentmindedly.
You’re tired I tell him. He doesn’t respond but continues to poke at the deconstructed salad roll on his plate. Piece by piece he eats the noodles, tofu and peppers he refused to let me wrap together.
We have been wrapping everything lately. Sushi, burritos, salad rolls. The girl eats it all. I love this! she exclaims of whatever I put on her plate.
Most of the time the boy eats it too. But not tonight. He is too tired to humour me. He only reluctantly left the intricate train track he was building on the floor of the kitchen to sit beside me at the table. Tonight he wants his food deconstructed.
I hear their voices from the other room. The husband’s deep voice speaking slowly. The girl’s high pitched voice chattering away. The boy’s squeaky voice trying desperately to break in to the husband’s never ending story.
He tells it in the kitchen while he washes dishes. He tells it while the kids are in the bath. He tells the story of the badly behaved purple kangaroo whenever the kids ask.
Once the husband told the story and the kids listened. Then the girl started to chime in and set the course of the kangaroo’s adventures. Now the kids compete to see who can be first/ the loudest/ the funniest to shout out ideas for the never ending story.
We shoved the broken pieces of sushi into our mouths at the same time. As I turned to her to say “I’m just going to eat this” she faced me to ask “Can I eat this?” We looked at each other for a moment and then away, each reaching for small bits of avocado and rice wrapped in nori. Standing together at the kitchen table strewn with the ingredients and the spoils of our dinner preparation after a long day watching her happily learning to swim in the pool and dribble a basketball with her brother in the gym I felt full.
And not just of sushi.
The girl ripped open the package. There’s too much tape I said. I’ll get the scissors she volunteered, happy to be helpful when it would get her closer to the presents inside.
This is for you I said handing her the first gift I pulled from the box that had arrived that morning in the mail. And this is for you I said to the boy. He was still somewhat sleepy from the nap he had taken that afternoon. He frowned petulantly, but allowed me to open the present for him.
A new dress! exclaimed the girl. And chocolates. The chocolates were tossed to the side. The girl, despite her best efforts, does not like chocolate. I want to wear the dress she told me.
I helped her into the dress with one hand all while opening the boy’s present with the other. He had become more interested when he saw his sister’s chocolates. Now he wanted his present too.
Look, I said infusing my voice with thrilling anticipation, it’s a Spiderman shirt!The boy had been obsessively talking about wanting to have a Spiderman shirt for weeks. A Spiderman shirt and a Lighting McQueen watch just like one of his best friends.
The boy looked pleased. For a moment. Then he burst into tears, his voice muffled through his sobs. Lightening. McQueen. Watch. I was able to make out. He continued to mumble the words as he cried.
I sighed as I sat with him on my lap, completely inconsolable, while his sister sat beside me on the couch wearing her new white Easter dress. Only when I handed over an opened bag of dark chocolate Easter eggs did he agree to wipe away his tears.
I thought a lot about that watch. I wondered if I should try to track one down. Then I decided I couldn’t be bothered to search all over town for a cheap plastic watch. Would he even really care?
The watch is black. I paid four dollars for it when I stumbled upon it yesterday. The boy is wearing it lovingly fastened around his left wrist. I wonder if it will still be there when he wakes up in the morning.
The surprisingly hot March sun shone down on me as I sat on the park bench. From the corner of my eye I glimpsed the kids run past. It didn’t bother to turn my head towards them. I was too busy watching a nine-year-old climb up to the bottom branch of a very tall tree.
I guess her arm is better the mom sitting beside me said.
Yes I replied thinking of the cast I had seen the girl wear only months before.
As I watched I wondered about birth order and personality and gender. How much does each of these things influence a kid and their desire to climb a tree. My girl rarely climbs trees. She is cautious and careful, more content to watch as others scale the tree trunk and step onto the limbs. The girl I watched sitting on the tree branch was the youngest of three.
Maybe the youngest is always the biggest risk taker? I asked out loud.
As we left the park the boy ran ahead of us. When I reached him he was already standing on the bottom branch of the lilac tree by the park gate.
Be careful I said.
Me jump he told me.
No! It’s too high to jump.
From here? he asked taking one step closer to the tree trunk.
No. That is still just as high.
Here? he checked, moving another half inch toward the trunk.
I rolled my eyes as the negotiations continued. He wouldn’t hold my hand as he jumped. He wouldn’t climb down. I wouldn’t let him jump.
Then the discussion ended. I watched as he slipped off the branch and fell the four feet to the ground. I wasn’t fast enough to catch him despite standing two feet away. But as he lay crying on the ground, shocked from the fall and sore from the scratches on his back, I reached out and pulled him close against me. Wondering how long it would be before he was wearing his own cast.
She carries it like a sacred object. Arms outstretched in front of her, it balances carefully as she slowly walks from room to room. She darts away from her brother every time he gets close. The girl isn’t ready to share her new portable cd player.
The cd player is always on. Magic Treehouse audio books play continually. It is never beyond her arm’s reach.
Driving in grandma’s car, I turn my head to glance back at the girl. She is staring out the window. Her face is relaxed ,but thoughtful. The red cd player sits in its place of honour on her lap.
