The idea of summer brings to mind popsicles, sprinklers, bare feet in the sand and camping in a tent. Yet those images belong to my own childhood. Summer holds a different flavour now as a mom. Specific to the needs of Rachel and Janneke, it means more time at home and less respite. This summer…
My mother-in-law recently moved into a long-term care home in our neighbourhood, so I am able to walk over to see her. Her present health on account of aging has made it difficult for her to remember names and events well. When we talk together, there are times when she has difficulty recalling. Yet when…
“Last night, while I lay thinking here,some Whatifs crawled inside my earand pranced and partied all night longand sang their same old Whatif song . . .” So begins a poem from Shel Silverstein, one that describes vividly for me how active my own imagination was (and still is). As a child, my imagination created…
I’m sitting down to write on the first open-yer-windows day of 2021. Birds are hollering at the humans to get outside and soak up the sunshine. Walks with our girls on days like this are a gift. Though we loved the wheelchair skis on snow, it is easier to move wheels on bare pavement and…
Now it’s February. We can’t forget it’s the month to celebrate Black History (I highly recommend I. Wilkeson’s book The Warmth of Other Suns), and there are some who like to acknowledge St. Valentine on February 14. Yet, I must admit, I’m finding it hard to write about non-COVID-19 things. After almost one year, this…
In 1999, Ralph and I were living in Minneapolis, and there was hype over the impending switch from 1999 to 2000. Given that computers were programmed for just two digits (keeping 19 as the understood first two digits), experts feared the systems that ran everything, including banking, power plants and library fines, would not be…
“So, when are we decorating for Christmas?” My oldest turned to me and asked, as she does every year when the calendar marks November. If you’ve read my column in the past, you’ll know she’s also the one who programs my kitchen radio to every station that only plays Christmas music. The kid has an…
Thanks to Gordon Lightfoot, I associate this time of year with the gales of November. Forty-five years ago this month, one of the largest ships of the Great Lakes sailed and sank – the Edmund Fitzgerald. The last words from the captain over radio transmission were, “We are holding our own, going along like an…
“The end of summer is not the end of the world. Here’s to October…” – A.A. Milne The cooler weather prevails, as do the yellowed leaves falling on our butterfly garden. The random scatterings make our new garden look settled, and I’m already looking forward to the spring when everything will bloom again. Mind you, I’m…
“Mom, do we have any clean masks? Soph and I are headed out.” The times they are a-changin’. We are now required to wear a mask to go to the bank, and a grocery store’s recent radio ad boasts a delivery service that features food picked from a warehouse and packed by robots.
It’s 7:30 in the morning, and I am pulling a shirt over Janneke’s head. Rachel is already in her wheelchair and watching us intently. She’s typically more cooperative with getting dressed, offering me a gentle grin after stretching her long legs.
For those unfamiliar with my column, I’m a mom to four great girls. Caring for neurotypical teens is not without its challenges, but I have chosen to focus my writing primarily on my two younger daughters. Rachel and Janneke are neurodiverse with specific medical needs that create an added layer of complexity to mothering. Juggling their care alongside engineering the home routine keeps me more than sufficiently busy.
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