The Perfect Parent~A mini Series II

So the decision was made 14 years ago...the perfect parent, tall order to fill.  However, I set out, me and my sick daughter would do all the things I wished my mom had done with me.  Sit and colour, make messy finger paints, sing and dance, go for hikes, strolls on the beach and best of all... home made play dough.  We made a lot of play dough and lets face it, who doesn't love the stuff?  It's also non toxic when coloured with Kool-aid and to yucky tasting to worry about your child ingesting fist fulls. (I'll share my favorite recipe at the end of this post)

In between all this fun were Doctor appointments, specialists, ER visits and more illness.  It was our normal.  Amazing how the tables have turned, it's still our normal, just that I'm the one who's sick now.  Magically, and I mean that literally we welcomed a son into the world.  I say magically because our daughter was a fertility baby and he, well... he wasn't, he was free, for lack of a better word.  A true gift.   And what a joy he was.  This little bundle brought his own set of illness with him which I think is the reason that to this day they have the most amazing bond to one another.  I've seen them both on many occasions "take care" of one another when the other was sick.  Human nature is amazing, raising children with compassion is the true skill.

My kids are amazing, truly amazing human beings who understand how precious life is, how it's a gift, they weren't born that way, it was taught to them, by me.  You see the perfect parent isn't one who gives in to every whine or temper tantrum they don't buy everything the child wants, nope...they take the time to explain, to love, to be present and most importantly to listen.

I did something really wonderful for myself not that long ago, I transferred all the old home movie tapes to  DVD so we could watch them.  I was flooded with awesome memories of their toddler years and all the fun we had.  I was shocked when they told me that they didn't really remember doing those things.  I couldn't believe it, it actually made me cry, how on earth could I have put so much effort into all these awesome activities and they don't remember?  Then I realized that while I thought I was creating memories I was actually building charter in my children.  They know how to share, be kind and respect each other, those are the things you learn from making and playing play dough, Sesame street can't give you that, you get that from the "Perfect Parent"

Kool-Aid Play Dough

• 2 1/2 cups of flour
• 1 cup of salt
• 1 or two packages of coloured drink mix like Kool-aid, use two for a deeper colour
• 2 cups of boiling water
• 3 tablespoons of oil

Mix the flour salt and Kool-aid until blended
Add the oil to the boiling water
Add water and oil to the flour mixture and stir with a metal spoon (using your wooden ones will result in lovely coloured wooden spoons :)
Once cool enough, kneed until well blended.  This part is fun for the kids, just make sure it has cooled down enough in the centre of the dough.

I've even waited to add the Kool-Aid until the end, splitting the dough up into smaller batches, but if you don't act fast you'll get "crystally" play dough as the colour crystals didn't dissolve.

I never used fancy containers just zip lock bags, one for each colour we would make.  Then we would store them in the fridge.  They should last about 2 months but if you were like my kids within a few weeks, red, blue and yellow play dough was just a big blob of brown, equally as fun, just not as pretty.

photo credits:   Kraft

The Perfect Parent~A Mini Series

We all start out to be " the perfect parent".  We read the books, take the class, eat the right food and hope to have the perfect labour to welcome our new bundle of joy into this world.  There has never been a more beautiful baby, and surely this child will be the one to end war, end starvation and run the country, all before he or she is 25.  Yes, I have the perfect child.

Very quickly reality sets in that first night home.  A horrific sound awakes your exhausted mind, crying!!  Yes that first night I was in such a deep sleep that I had forgotten that this perfect bundle of joy, was going to wake...and wake often.  I've never slept in a deep sleep like that ever again.

Suddenly those perfect images in every book are a bunch of crap.  There's no taking turn's feeding or changing the baby.  Even if it was perfectly "fair"with a chore chart with Mommy's name and Daddy's name and gold stickers marking each time a diaper was changed.  You'd swear your husband found your stash of gold stickers and secretly places as many of those shinning stars by his name as possible.  Why?  Because your exhausted, your hormonal and raising your voice has just become the norm.

I raised both of my kids pretty much on my own (yes another child follows, so the crying isn't all that bad)  My husband (now ex) works on the oil rigs, I was pretty much alone most of the time.  I have no biological family in the Province I live in, so there wasn't anyone who just came to help, and help is what I needed.  My daughter was not a healthy child, born with an immune deficiency she was sick all the time.  I was exhausted, overwhelmed and depleted.

I will never forget the day I realized that parenting was going to be what I made it.  My daughter asleep on my chest laying on the couch I watched a huge spider fixing his web.  The spider had been there for weeks growing fat and equally scary.  Everyday however, the spider would have to fix his web after that nights catch damaged the delicate silk.  The whole point of a web I suppose!  The spider however, carefully went around and around making his web perfect and beautiful, knowing that he would have to do it all over again tomorrow.  I am just like this spider, if I want to create not just a life for my daughter but a beautiful one I was going to have to work for it every single day.  This is when I decided to be " the perfect parent" or as perfect as I could be.

It's All In My Head

So here's the thing...I've been writing post like these in my other blog, Bubblegum and Honeycomb for some time now.  I've just kept them to myself, parenting struggles and yes, a few rants, that come with parenting with a brain tumour.  All unpublished, all unread.   From time to time I reread my blog posts, just to keep myself "in check".  So what did I find?  That these blog post were actually funny for the most part.  Me, with my off beat sense of humour, fumbling my way through my new maze of parenting with yes...a hole in my head.

My brain surgery left me with a toonie size hole in my head.  For all those non Canadian's a Toonie is our $2 coin that is about the size of a golf ball, obviously flat, not round, you get the idea.
Now do I think that a hole in my head changes my parenting skills...umm NO, that would be silly.  Do I think that having brain surgery has changed my outlook on parenting in this wacko world we live in...most definitely.

So my new found place to rant, praise and of course share those moments of parenting that are not taken for granted will be here.  Having a hole in your head changes who you are, not because they didn't put the piece of skull back, but because behind that hole, deep in my brain is a tumour.  That will change you, your outlook, your parenting, your patience, you ability to love deeper and honestly, to see the little things AND of course the things that drive you crazy.  The old saying, it's all in your head has a whole new meaning, that's not necessarily a bad thing.