Happy Birthday Mommies & 1 Bowl Banana Bread

Being a mother is learning about strengths you didn’t know you had, and dealing with fears you didn’t know existed.

 

This weekend was my Mom’s 63rd birthday. Or would’ve been at least. Instead of feeling sad on special days that remind me of my Mom, we try to push good karma back into our community. My Mom’s favourite saying used to be “what comes around goes around” and I think there’s some truth to that.

This year her birthday was especially hard.

I miss her.

I wish I could say so many things to her. I wish I could ask her advice. I wish she was here to give me one of her Mom hugs that made everything better. Being a Mom is hard but it’s even harder being a Mom without a Mom.

I don’t know what I’m doing! I think there were days when she felt the exact same way. Maybe sometimes she thought she was doing a bad job. Were there times when she thought she wasn’t tough enough on my creative brother, when she thought my sister’s low self esteem was all her fault, or did she believe the awful things I said to her in a fit of rage? I wish she was here to see us all thriving with families of our own although the same doubts that she had… we are facing them too.

It has been a rough start of the year for the Girls which in turn means it’s been a rough month for myself. Grade 8 and grade 4 suck! I especially hated grade 4. It was the first year that my WinnipegBesty moved across the city, I didn’t make the A team in ringette with the rest of my friends, and I had the worst teacher of my school career, Mrs. St Jean. She was miserable and she stunk like old coffee.

I am super thankful that SBean likes her teachers this year. That’s right, teachers. For reasons unknown to us, SBean has 1 teacher on Mondays, Tuesday’s and half of Thursday and Wednesday, half of Thursday, and Friday is another teacher! Actually, one of the teachers started the first 2 weeks and left for another school so now they’ve had a third teacher come in. I am always understanding of teachers needs because they have a hard job, I just hope my daughter doesn’t suffer because of it.

HBear had a terrible grade 4 teacher! She too was a part-time teacher & HBear never found her footing. Unfortunately with 2 teachers it’s hard to recognize when the kids are struggling. HBear’s teacher had issues and would give the kids daily quotes on the board like “life sucks get over it”. That was the year HBear stopped wearing positive messaging on her T-shirts. I saw it. I wish I had listened to my gut and maybe grade 8 wouldn’t be so sucky for her. I’m glad that my past experience will help me make sure SBean is adjusting well to her grade 4 life, but at what cost?

Parenting is hard. Being a Mom is hard. Being a Mom without a Mom is even harder. Happy birthday Mommies, I wish you were here 💛.