The Diaper: A Mother’s Companion: Part Three

It’s 10:45pm.

Why am I in this bar?

Because the Guppins wakes constantly, and sucks on my tits relentlessly through the
night, and whines and cries, and it is not good. So Sir Dick, in a temporary moment of
utter compassion, sent me out and is doing bedtime with her.

I was ordered to leave the house, go out and get a drink or something.

The first thing I do is a garbage run. You have to pay like two bucks per bag of garbage
in this town. Taxes don’t cover it. Don’t get me started. My mama friends bust a gut
when I describe darting down to the main street under cover of darkness, lurking in the
shadows, avoiding bank video cams as I deposit small garbage bag after garbage bag
of dirty diapers and household debris in half a dozen public cans (with the small holes
which makes it awkward and tense).

Maybe I could go see some friends.

I have no friends in this town. Lie — I have two friends, Ursula and Slink. Ursula has
family night tonight and Slink is out with his girlfriend for dinner. I know this because
earlier I texted him (desperate) and asked if it was cool to drop in. He, of course, said
yes, so I put the Guppins in the stroller, crossed town, peekin’ in the windows full of
settled homes, families with multiple members (that sounds rude), friends around pianos
with oversized clocks on the walls behind them. It’s all cheery and slightly eighties
and tasteful and perfect. I trudge. I push the $5 yard-sale-special stroller uphill (Sir
Dick’s stroller of choice; mine, which she loves, is in my apartment in Toronto), the
Guppins oddly quiet, immobilized in her strapped-in, blanketed state. I pretend she is
a Mennonite and I am a horse, yet still homesick for my life in Toronto (it’s been three
days) so I have my iPhone streaming my favourite CBC radio show of all time in my
back pocket as I trudge, breathe, take it all in, find peace…

Tom Power squeaks though denim, some barely discernable Kingston Trio on Deep
Roots muffled by my butt, my connection to old life staticky at best. We arrive at Slink’s.
Back door opens. I behold his Guilty Boyfriend Face.

“Trina’s here. We are going out for dinner at 7.”

It’s 6:10. Welcome welcome.

A short visit. Slink serves some delicious sweet Asti. (He has a sign on his kitchen that
says “It’s Wine O’Clock.”) His recently deceased mother’s sewing basket sits at the foot
of his stairs, and her beautiful oval dining table rests in his dining room. He is the guy
from Love You Forever, but he doesn’t have any kids, just nephews and nieces who he
adores, who he always has stuff in the house for. And me.

I love Slink. Just never quite enough, if you know what I mean. Just never quite enough.

They decide to walk downtown to the restaurant; it’s on the way.

“I found a pair of jeans in Slink’s closet, only they are about this much longer than my
legs”

Trina, tiny fireball, uses her hands to denote a giant’s leg…which would be mine.

Slink:

“You stayed over that once, right?”

I stayed several times, Slink. In fact, I stayed there a few times when you weren’t even
there. “Are they really dark denim?“

Trina: “No, they’re a weird blue and they have red paint on them.”

“Hmm. Probably not mine.”

Slink is in super deep shit. Though Trina is most definitely the most civil of my County
boyfriends’ girlfriends, one has to tread carefully in the backdoor of southwestern
Ontario. Girlfriend jealousy at a barbaric pitch. These folks live for violent drama.
Survival? Watch for the signs, fear exile, fear physical assault, fear losing your guy
friend.

I guess I’m still not too old for this shit.

I guess maybe I am remembering why I packed up and moved here in the first place.

I am…the Anthropoligyst.

Definition: Urban dwellers who visit small environs to observe and post comment.

Let the fun begin, I say.

And hey mean Mennonite lady who slapped my daughter’s hand away from your debit
machine buttons: I’m here, I’m watching, and I’m pissing into diapers in your thrift store
parking lots. So BE NICE.

“Sure, I’ll take the check”.

Time to go home.

-Drama Mama

The Diaper: A Mother’s Companion: Part Two

It’s 9:35pm.

I am now in the bar. Thinking about my daughter hitting herself in the head.

When I say “no” to something. Something that will maim her, like a razor blade.

I try to not think about the guy who invited me to New York in this very bar when I was
young and beautiful but I can’t help it.

“I’ll have a beer. Do you have Mill Street Organic? Oh. Ok. No that’s OK. Something
light. A lager. Blue? Umm…”

The first “chat” blog I check out on the subject begins something like this:

“My eighteen-month-old has been hitting herself in the head, so we decided to stop
spanking her,” etcetera and so on.

Someone out there is spanking an eighteen month old? And no one commented on this
post? I mean they commented, but not on the spanking. This depressed me, shocked
me; What The… Honest To… It is unbearable to even think.

“Can I get some wings? No, twenty. At least twenty. With blue cheese. A lot of it.”

I play a move on Word with Friends with the guy. He lives in LA now. He’s married to a
lingerie manager. Lingerie store manager.

“Hi? O Hi yes, I’ll have another beer. And a Caesar salad. No a large. Thanks.”

The next blog I glance at is by a very nice-looking/sounding gal who said that at around
this stage it is normal, babies don’t know how to express emotions, they’ve picked it up
from TV or somewhere (huh?), and the advice is to ignore and distract. What?

In moments of parenting curiosity, I turn to Dr. and Martha Sears’ The Baby Book.
There is a website, but I get suspicious around those websites because of all the
ghostwriting I assume goes on. Like, for example, has anyone out there noticed that
the Dr. Spock website touts attachment parenting principals? I’m pretty sure that
attachment parenting wasn’t his deal.

Anyway The Baby Book itself is fab for the first two years of development.

“Can I get it all at the same time? Thanks.”

I should probably get home. She’s probably awake and crying.

Ding ding. New York LA just made a move.

“Can I get a half? Just a half. Thanks.”

-Drama Mama

The Diaper: A Mother’s Companion: Part One

It’s 9:17 p.m.

I am parked in a car on the main street of Smalltown outside a bar where I once fell in
love with a guy who asked me to meet him in New York for Christmas. He said he’d fly
me there and I was young. Regrettably, the timing was wrong.

I contemplate going in.

Several things have happened. Sir Dick, the Guppins and I have moved from Big City
to this Very Large Village. Although I still have my apartment in Toronto (subletting
for three months) THANK GOD. It has been a complicated journey. There has been
the packing: his house, my house (not really), the Guppins sleeping at his place, then
at my place, camping in the new small-town house, the move itself, the episode of
Hoarders Sir Dick could have shot while I packed and rid his house entirely of debris
(yes, “debris,” as stipulated in the buyer’s contract). There has been stomach flu, the rat
who scurried — nay, boldly strode — around the living room while I packed.

When the movers picked up a couch, it darted into the kitchen.

(A squeal from within)

“The baby’s in the kitchen! The baby’s in the kitchen!” (me, running, anguished)

Mover guy: “Don’t worry, if it bit her she’d be making a heck of a lot more noise than
that.”

There has been the intense, almost indescribable mental anguish of Sir Dick at having
to burn away his old life for one anew at age 68. And, of course, the disintegration of our
relationship, which is a shambles, a reeking ruin of despair. But let’s keep this related to
babies.

I have discovered, through this journey, several new uses for the disposable baby
diaper:

A. To vomit into while driving.

B. To relieve myself into in the parking lot of the Mennonite thrift store.

C. To use as an overnight maxi pad when in desperate need.

Please please don’t tell my daughter.

I go into the bar.

-Drama Mama

The Small-Town Latte Mission

My tongue is stinging. I look down at my latte with trepidation. I need the caffeine but my

tongue hurts. It hurts.

I’m staying at my friend Eldora’s farmhouse. It’s outside the small town where our
new house awaits. Sir Dick and I take possession in a couple of weeks so we’re on a
visitation.

The day begins with several layers of scalded tongue cells, courtesy a local “coffee
shop”.

Never trust them with your coffee.

One of the voices in my head says, “You can’t take your eye off them, not even for a
second”…this person emerges when I forget to check an expiry date, or when something
doesn’t make it into the grocery bags, or, say, when a styling assistant blow-dries my
hair and poofs the top of my head, making me look like a Real Housewife. It especially
goes into gear on culinary expeditions in small towns. I should know. I am an actor.
I have toured most small towns in this country. Trucker coffee is well known to me.
Always head to the Greek place.

My tongue hurts.

Here’s what happened:

“El, can you go in and get me a latte?”

…Guppins fast asleep in the backseat.

“No problem.”

I decide to complicate things. I roll down my window:

“Ask them to keep it a little dry...”

(Blank stare)

“It means less milk more foam.”

The second it’s out of my mouth, I regret it.

“Okay.” She gives me a look. It was subtle, but I got it. I’m a spoiled brat. (That’s the
other voice in my head.)

A colleague once told me that when acting, I should remember the two little gnomes
perched on each shoulder. One constantly whispers, “You’re shit — you really suck.”
The other one is saying, “You’re gonna fuckin’ die.”

Harsh, I know. Kinda blows the angel/devil thing out of the water, but I like it. Ramps up
the whole acting intention stuff. Anyway…

Back to Eldora and the small-town latte mission. Eldora, a former hippie, a real
knockout, a music-playing goddess, former whatever whatever of Sir Dick, was raised by
German farmers nearby and has lived here her whole life (but for some time in Toronto
educating herself to be a piano tuner, among other things). She had two kids, starting
at age eighteen. So did her daughter, and then her daughter’s son, and her daughter’s
daughter, which is why she was a great-grandmother at my age. I look at this legacy of
accidental regeneration and I worry. Is this what happens in a small town? If you don’t
keep your eye on things? Is the Guppins going to be a grandmother by the time she’s
twenty?

Eldora has done everything, every job; she is the hardest-working person I have ever
met. Her man Boogie is an antiques guy, but he doesn’t believe in selling anything and
it makes Ursula mentally insane. Still, they’ve done well. They own several properties,
and both work behind the scenes at the massive theatre company I was recently turned
down by. Eldora has few faults. But she makes weak coffee. (Sorry, El.) I like really
strong espresso, and needed a hit before visiting the new house.

She returned with the latte (seemed to take a long time), passed it through the car
window, said “Okay, meet you there,” walked off to her car, I took a sip.

I spat — I spewed —a scream caught in my throat. What was I THINKING? Never let
your guard down when it comes to coffee in a small town — NEVER LET IT DOWN! If
there is one thing I hate, it’s scalding my tongue on an over-steamed, flat, burning-hot
latte. And I know why this is done, yes I do. I know this because I once worked, eons
ago, with an espresso machine. When you don’t know what you are doing, you think
steaming milk longer will make it foam more. It doesn’t. It just burns the milk. It makes it
foam less. So my whole thing about “make it dry” likely

A) embarrassed my friend Eldora;

B) stressed out the — I can barely say it — “barista”;

C) who knew I was from Toronto and deliberately wanted to burn the shit out of my
mouth because he or she hates outsiders.

Okay, maybe C is a little bit conspiracy-minded.

The “latte” was an overly large Styrofoam container of scorched milk consisting of zero
foam and vaguely tasting of car tire. Or ash tray.

I decide to hold my tongue about it. I have to; it is practically bleeding out of my face.

“Spoiled brat!” says the voice.

I take the ice pack from the travel cooler I keep for the Guppins’s food and swab my
tongue with it. Which produces a cloud of steam and smoke that leaks out the car
windows. I’ve been branded by stupid small-town stupid coffee.

“How’s your latte?”

(It burned the shit out of my tongue. I hate it here.)

“Pretty good — a bit on the hot side.”

At this, Eldora, no dummy, gives me her best farm girl:

“Well, he was probably trying to make a lot of foam because he spent a lot of time
steaming it for you.”

For you.

Love that.

We get to the new house. It’s all different. It looks smaller. It is now clear to me that
vampires occupy it. Vines block the windows. There is no light. And one of the vampires
has decided to return after ten minutes because, she tells our agent, she has a bad
back.

She perches on the sofa in the middle of the house and chatters away. Loudly.

I avoid her. Isn’t this illegal? This wouldn’t be allowed in Toronto!

Finally I have to go into the room of Vampire Perch to measure it.

“What part of Toronto are you from?”

The west...section.

“I lived near High Park!” she screeches.

I can see, clearly, it was a brief runaway trip with a boyfriend to a methamphetamine-
type setting in Brantford, or some year at community college that didn’t pan out.

From the city. Ha. Her mother works at the local health food store. I learn this, along
with a myriad of details pertaining to her sex life, while attempting to focus on MY NEW
HOUSE.

“I know what it’s like moving from the big city. It’s a big change. Oh, by the way, we are
leaving the piano action. It’s our gift to you!”

INAPPROPRIATE! Get this woman out of here!! I can feel her life force seeping into my
pores. Oh God, please can you just not exist? Worse yet — I adore the piano action. It
hangs in the front hall, a unique piece of reclaimed art. Even Eldora was impressed by it
during the first house viewing:

“Well, wouldn’t you know, I threw one of those on the fire last week!” (Eldora)

“Oh God, I love it (I say at the time). I’ve never seen anything like that in TORONTO.”

“Don’t worry I’ve got another one in the back barn.”

Seriously. She has two piano actions. And two barns.

So, knowing Eldora has one for me in stock, I say to the little vampire with Big Sticky-
Outy Evil Elfin Ears:

“That is so [weirdly] generous of you — why don’t you want to keep it?”

(Now I’m thinking it’s haunted. The piano action is haunted and she wants to leave it in
the haunted house we just bought.)

“We-elll…” says Vampire Elf, “our new place has a lot of windows [liar], it’s practically
all windows [liar], and you see how much [godforsaken] art we have. I could give you
my email — not sure if you’re ready for phone numbers yet [never] but we live only five
minutes away [fuck] and I know what it’s like....”

Turns out she’s a big fan of Sir Dick. From one of his TV shows where he plays a father-
figure type. Undoubtedly this explains everything.

It also turns out, we are yet to discover, the house is haunted.

Buyer’s remorse.

New life, here we come.

-Drama Mama

Powerless

I just found out I didn’t get a job in the small Ontario town where I am moving with
Sir Dick and the Guppins.

In the small Ontario town, there is only one game that suits my profession and it’s
a biggie.

It was a good position, one that I felt I deserved, and indeed I was short-listed.

It’s possible that, had I not been woefully sleep-deprived and vaguely depressed,
I may have had the energy to prep more for the telephone interview. Prepped at
all, really. Okay, I would say by my standards I winged it. And I blew it. I wasn’t
surprised to get the very polite, if not encouraging, rejection letter. It would have
made things easy. Things haven’t been easy, professionally. I work in the arts.
Which is what I was doing when I was pregnant — discovered I was pregnant.
I was on track to take over a fantastic position. I was being groomed. I found
out I was pregnant exactly one week after my first day covering my colleagues’
maternity leave who would soon be resigning. I had driven across the continent
with belongings and dog with the full intention of moving, forever.

It took me a while to figure out what was going on; I thought maybe it was
menopause. Not unheard of at age 40. My older, wiser friend urged a pregnancy
test. Ridiculous, I thought. It’s the flu.

But no, I was pregnant. I phoned Sir Dick, he reacted negatively, and I cut him
out of my life. How could I do this to him? 3,000 kilometres’ distance, and a lot
of ignored emails. I was experiencing an extreme sense of self-preservation- it
apparently kicks in with pregnancy. A friend described it as “the bullshit meter” in
low tolerance/ high detection mode.

While I was pregnant, I planned. I planned to get my job. I planned childcare, I
planned finances, I planned letters of reference, and I planned an amazing plan.
I made the final interview. It was down to three. It should have been a slam dunk.
I flew home to have the baby, prepared to fly back in five months to start my job,
single mother, Leader, actualized woman of the millennium.

But it didn’t happen. For some horrible terrible tragic reason it didn’t happen.
Despite the fact that I put in ten hours a day for seven months, worked my butt
off, worked my relationships, raised funds for the company, and weathered crisis
after crisis. I lived like pioneer in a cabin in the woods with a wood stove and
no electricity, chopping kindling, getting my water delivered in a garbage can.

(At this point you might be asking what is it exactly that would make her want
this job, right? I know.) I gave it my all. I did my best. But they gave the job to
someone else.

What followed was devastation, pure and simple. And no one back home could
understand. Because I had done it alone. I had planned alone, and I lost alone.

I am not seven months pregnant at this interview. …no, this time my rising belly
gives no rising questions. This time I want the job less. It’s an easier job, easier
than full-time mothering. I would have Sir Dick living with me, helping. I would
have support in this small Ontario town.

But not to be.

The Guppins recently began throwing little fits. Tossing her self on the floor and
scooting away from me. Crying out.

“She’s not even two,” I question a friend.

She tells me,

“At this age, they begin to discover how they are powerless.”

I am more careful. I no longer expect The Guppins to do what I want, what is
convenient. I try to provide options. I am more careful. “She is not a sack of
potatoes,” I tell myself. “I can’t just toss her around.”

And I never leave her alone.

The tantrums are becoming less frequent.

So how do I stop tearing myself up inside? Banging my fists? Crying out?

I tell my Momma friends the advice I try so hard to give to myself:

Be gentle. Tell yourself you love yourself many, many times a day. Say it out
loud even though it feels stupid. I love you I love you I love you. We are our best
advocate and friend. We are our biggest critic.

And if my Grey Mamma can take the easy-ride seat for pregnant ladies even though she isn't pregnant anymore, but then one morning turn it around and bravely tell some lady to F off because she’s NOT pregnant, then I can deal with this. I can deal with being powerless.
I can turn it around.

-Drama Mama