Mom Mondays

What did I learn this weekend? Oh man. (pun intended)

This has been a strange four years for me. I moved out to a farm after thirty two years of a kushie west coast existence. I don't mean we were ever rich...just that we had it easy. Everything was new, there were no tornadoes, heat was something that came on if you flipped a switch, ice was something we put in our diet sodas, water came from pipes, and bugs were convinced that Avon skin so soft was to be avoided.

Renovating my house with a baby or two strapped to my back while I hauled firewood, wielded a crow bar, carried out hot water to a cow during ice storms, or used a blow torch to take up old asphalt tiles, has turned me into a different sort of woman. Sort of like Lara Croft with mom boobs.

I have experienced divorce, the death of my fiance several months before our wedding, the loss of my father, and the birth of a new unexpected baby that I would have to raise alone with three other children. I have faced these things with an equanimity I think I must have inherited from my ancestors. I am the end result of those wild roaming Scots, those Machiavellian Frenchmen, those maudlin epic Irish immigrants, the shrewd and sometimes cold Germans. I have endured, I am still standing, I am actually still smiling.

But I am realizing some mistakes. I used to think I didn't like men, and then suddenly my survival was dependent on them, and then I needed them to teach me anything I could so I could take over my own life. And then suddenly I was left without any men around me, to protect me, to irritate me with their misunderstood traits, to say...fix the pipes in the well house.

I remember being so frustrated that my father could spend all day on a project looking for parts, fitting it together, while I whipped around the house doing my thing like a hummingbird. Then I spent the day in the well house just like he used to, trying to make something work without the right parts or the exact knowledge. And of course I didn't manage to do it. Somehow the men in my life always seemed to be able to repair something with chewing gum, a bit of tinkering, and the elusive man knowledge that I, quite frankly, do not have, and probably never will.

Now, I'm no doubt going to irritate the feminists out there, and maybe some SAHDs, but the truth is I think we really are better suited to our own roles almost all the time. Sure we can be taught to do things, but some sort of innate ability, a fairy kiss from the cradle, gives one gender an advantage over the other in certain areas. And here's another thing. It's hard work being a man. Little did I know how difficult it can be to play with your kids while setting an example and holding down a d job and and holding out the fort. I'm going to go out on a limb here and actually say this... I think it is just as hard to be a dad as it is to be a mom. That is, it's hard to be a good parent if you are doing it right.

So now, I am humbled, and newly appreciative of all the boys I've loved before. And I am looking at my sons with new eyes, admiring their proclivities. Baby Oliver's eyes actually light up when he sees a car or construction vehicle. Liam wants to take everything apart and figure out how it works. It's amazing really how they came on the scene already prepared for what they will most likely have to do. And I am comforted too. It won't be long before I'll be able to pass the torch and go back to being a lady while someone else fixes the pipes.
And I will always, always say thank you...and really mean it.