Salted Caramels

On my fourteenth birthday, I applied for my first job. Oh sure, I had a paper route when I was 11 and I babysat regularly for neighbours but this job meant I'd be a clerk in an giant clothing store housed within an oversized mall. It was a real job. I was hired on the spot; so desperate the manager was for help. I went home, triumphant and excited, so thrilled to tell my parents my news.

My mom, she was less excited. Her maternal worries about my age, my grades, my childhood in general all sucked the air out of my balloon of exuberance. I remember standing in her sewing room explaining why it was a great idea that I have a part time job while she stood there looking less than thrilled.

She relented and the very next day I started my job. 

I can still remember the smell of the dusty back room and the hours I spent putting clothes onto flimsy plastic hangers and shoving them into over stuffed racks. It wasn't a great job, but it was my job.

It was the first of many crappy jobs. Clothing stores, daycares, hobby shops, movie theatres. I learned that one minimum wage job was as bad as the next and was convinced retail was Dante's first level of hell. 

Fast-forward to a few weeks ago and suddenly my fifteen-year-old son was standing in front of me explaining that he was offered a job and it's a really great idea as I stood there looking less than thrilled. 

But like my mother did before me, I swallowed my maternal worries, nodded my head and sent my baby off to his first day of work.

Nash, the friendly neighbourhood construction gopher, after his first day at work.

Just when I was coming to terms with the fact my son had willingly traded away his summer in pursuit of hard labour and the almighty dollar, my daughter walked into the house and jumped up and down excitedly about a paid internship at the local hospital and could I believe they chose her?

I wouldn't have believed it if they hadn't chose her. 

Ken, the friendly neighbourhood pediatric intern, after HER first day of work.

My visions of spending my summer kicking back by the pool, having the teens wait on me hand and foot, evaporated as quickly as the dollars from my bank account did after purchasing steel toed work boots, comfortable walking shoes and more business casual clothes than I have ever owned in my life.

Having two working teenagers sure cost me a lot of money. I must be doing this job thing wrong.

Every morning I watch Ken and Nash leave for work and every evening I watch them come back home and I can feel the sands of time slipping through my fingers. I'm watching these kids of mine play grownup now but soon enough I will blink and they won't be playing at it any more.

One day soon enough they'll leave for something bigger than me and they won't walk back through my door at the end of every day. 

It's sweet and salty all at once. Like biting into a salted caramel. 

I thought I had parenthood finally figured out but it turns out I have no idea how to do the one thing I need to do the most: Learn how to let them go.

So I'll just keep watching them come and go, new milestones reached with every day that passes and I'll keep holding them tight for as long as they let me until they've taken all that they need to be the people they are becoming. 

In the mean time, I'll always have salted caramels.

Mudder Lover

My yard has been a construction zone for over a year. Since the morning of April 27, 2012 when the first backhoe of many arrived in my yard to dig what seemed then, a giant gate to hell.

If only I knew. 

When the cement was poured, the doors hung and the snow starting to fly, I remember giving a great big sigh of thanks. 

"Thank GOD that's over and it's done," I thought as I watched our new garage doors close for the first time. My husband's dream, his Zeppelin Hangar was now in business.

It didn't take long for a blanket of snow to cover all evidence of construction, covering uneven ground, abandoned pieces of scaffolding, and remnants of six months of toil and trouble. 

I have to admit; Bruce's big beautiful barn sure does strike a pretty picture when surrounded by six feet of snow for half (or more) of our year. 

Eventually, however, snow melts and it didn't take long to realize what a complete disaster my yard was. 

That's wife code for "You broke my yard, now you better fix it." My husband took that as an invitation for fun and didn't look back. 

I should have realized I was in for a rough ride when I woke up to find this on my front lawn a few weeks ago and a husband with a grin so big his face threatened to split in two.

But I'm a big girl. I knew what had to be done. I could handle this. 

I handled it for approximately less time than it took for the first bucket of dirt to be dumped and then I fled the premises. Sometimes it's easier to deal with the carnage if you don't have to witness the proverbial killing.

I made Bruce swear he wouldn't tear my entire lawn up. "Don't dig up past the cherry tree! Leave me some grass! Promise you'll won't kill all the grass I worked so hard to grow!"

My husband always keeps his promises.

Sort of. 

I would have been mad about the entire destruction of my front lawn and my tiny patch of grass but I was too busy being horrified by the giant pit of doom I almost fell into when I walked out of the barn to get to the house.

I promise you all, it only looks like my husband was trying to kill me.

*Twitch.*

Everywhere I looked there was dirt. I couldn't get to my house, let alone SEE my house; there was so much dirt. 

Apparently, when you dig a big hole, you get a big dirt pile. 

I'm told it's basic science. Science sucks.

Once the hole was dug the fun began. And by fun I mean, full blown anxiety attack. We had to hire a crane to lift our cement water cistern and move it ten feet to the left.

That's right. TEN FEET. 

ALL OF THIS DESTRUCTION FOR TEN FREAKING FEET.

I would have killed my husband but I couldn't reach him.

Luckily for us (and our bank account,) the cistern moved with no problem and the hole was filled back in. 

And yet, I was still surrounded by mounds of dirt. 

And it was starting to rain.

I was not happy. 

Abbott, however, was THRILLED. Guess who just found out her dog loves to dig? 

*Raises hand.*

It rained for over two weeks. Northern Alberta flooded, then southern Alberta flooded and my yard turned into one big mud wrestler's delight. The dogs, the cats, the kids, my floors, everything was covered in mud. 

Mud everywhere. 

Which lead to this:

A very broken toe.

This is what happens when one is trying to prevent an itty-bitty dog with muddy paws from running across the living room floor and diving onto your furniture. You chase after the dirty mongrel only to smash your foot against the coffee table and the dog still gets the furniture filthy.

I've since learned mud makes the ugly leather couch look much better. 

Muddy paws are only slightly more acceptable than broken toes.

Slowly the yard started to dry out and the arduous process of trying to grade the yard began. 

Translation: My husband moved dirt from one location to the next. He swears he has a plan, but I'm pretty sure his plan is trying to drive me to madness.

It wasn't so bad. I only had to carry Knox up and down this hill several times a day, like a sure-footed mountain goat, because there was no way to access the house with his wheelchair. 

Not every plan is perfect. And I only almost dropped Knox once. Mostly because after I almost dropped him and fell on my face I refused to carry him over that hill of dirt without someone walking alongside me. You know. Someone I could pull down with us if I tripped.

Because if Knox and I go down, I'm taking as many people with me as I can. 

Thankfully, the rain stopped, the sun came out and my husband moved most of the dirt off to the side. That's a problem for another day. In the meantime, I almost have a front yard again.

Kind of. 

It doesn't look like much to the casual eye, but to me it's the glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel and the bones of what will one day soon be a beautiful end to what has been a very long construction season.

I'll have my yard back.

Just in time for the snow to fly once again.

Argh.

Channeling Tracy Flick

It was the fourth week into grade 7 and I had just turned 12 years old a few days earlier when my homeroom teacher stopped teaching to tell us the time had arrived for student council elections. 

A thrill zipped through me as I envisioned my victory and I started planning my campaign. At lunch, I wandered over to the bulletin board and declared myself a candidate for class secretary, my pen poking a hole through the paper and into the cork underneath as I signed my name. I wasn't particularly interested in being a secretary of any sort and I had no actual idea of what my duties would entail but it was the position with the least amount of candidates running and I figured it was my best bet to win.

I ran the worst campaign. I put up ONE poster. I stammered through my speech. But it didn't matter. I WANTED it. I could taste victory and I was self-deluded and brazen enough to think that a 12-year-old kid with no friends or alliances in a new school I had only been in a month could actually win.

Shockingly, I lost. I didn't just lose. I was annihilated. In a twist of adult cruelty, the vote count was announced for every candidate. I remember my cheeks burning with shame as my homeroom teacher revealed the votes.

Tanis Miller - 1.

One lousy vote out of a school of hundreds. And that lone vote was my own. 

I was crushed.

Source

I could feel my chest tighten and my eyes started to blink rapidly and I was mortified to find myself unable to hold back my tears. I can still taste the humiliation and shame of that moment on my tongue. 

I never, ever, ran for any voting based positions again. One loss was one too many for my fragile deluded ego. 

I buried the memory of my council bid beneath years of other puberty related humiliations and soon enough life had supplied plenty of other cruelties to help me forget my seventh grade shame.

And then, my daughter announced she was running for class president. 

Suddenly I was wearing aqua green eyeliner, picking my zits and trying to avoid being stuffed into a locker all over again.

Ken wasn't worried. She already held the positions of class treasurer and vice president. She was ready to try and tackle the presidency. Her self-confidence never waivered, even when she learned she was running opposite one of the more popular kids in her grade. A kid even I couldn't help but like.

Source

My daughter? She was Tracy Flick. Utterly convinced she was the best candidate for the job.

Me? I couldn't stop hearing the laughter of my classmates ring in my ears as the vote count was read out.

So while my daughter set about campaigning for presidency, making her posters, writing her speech, gathering allies and whatever it is one does during an election, I twitched.

I didn't want my daughter to relive my horror, nor did I want to sully her confidence with my fear. It felt like I was walking on a tight rope over the fires of hell and that's when I knew I had to chill out. My kid would fall and brush herself off or she would succeed. But my loss was not a guarantee of hers.

For the most part, I managed to keep my mouth shut. I helped her craft a few slogans, offered to pay for some poster boards and nodded along as she talked about what her pre-election speech would be. On the surface, I was a levelheaded responsible adult encouraging her daughter to try her best. On the inside, I was stabbing every teenager I encountered with the power of my mind.

Source

"Win with dignity, lose with grace," I would tell my daughter every day. Ken would roll her eyes and sigh "Yes Mom," every time I said it but she didn't realize I wasn't saying it to her. I was saying it for me. 

I was reliving my grade seven year all over again but this time I was determined not to burst into tears in front of the entire class. 

The morning of the election I wished Ken good luck in her election and I told her how proud I was. How the results didn't matter, only her efforts counted. How her confidence and perseverance amazed me. And it does. I lost one race and never tried again. My kid has been putting herself out there since junior high, despite what anyone thought of her. 

That afternoon, the phone rang. 

"The results are in Mom," she said quietly.

"And???" I asked half believing she won, half fearing she lost.

"I won!" she squealed and my heart sped up and I inhaled sharply. She had done what I never dared attempt.

"Congratulations! You did it!" She yammered on for a few minutes about who won the other races and how the day went and I half listened. It was hard to hear over my inner 12 year old hooting and hollering in a victory dance.

Source

It turns out my daughter wasn't ever Tracy Flick. I was. And like Tracy, I was a big loser. 

I've never been prouder my daughter didn't follow in my footsteps. She isn't anything like me.

She's better.

Congratulations kid. 

Class President 2013.