Posted on by Danna Bach · 2 Comments

Sobering thoughts about pandemic drinking

“I’m allergic to red wine,” a good friend once told me when I offered her a glass. “I once drank two litres of homemade red and became violently ill.”

By this logic, I’m allergic to Smirnoff Ice, my high school boyfriend was horrifically allergic to boilermakers, and my best friend is allergic to banana flavoured paralyzers.

Like many others, I’ve washed Smirnoff Ice-flavoured vomit out of my hair following a party held inside a faux spaceship in a small Alberta town, but that was a long, long time ago, and I honestly can’t remember the last time I had an “allergic” reaction to booze.

These days, a single glass of wine leaves me pleasantly warm and snoozy. My clothes fit better, snacks are more delicious, and Netflix comedy specials are funnier. More than a glass or two and I risk bed spins, so it’s a delicate and delightful balance.

sobering thoughts

I’m not a big drinker, but I think about drinking often, and this gleeful anticipation has caused me some consternation.

Let’s face it, the pandemic has changed all of our habits, and our alcohol consumption is only one. Last fall, researchers at York University discovered that parents of children under 18 are using alcohol to cope with pandemic-related stress. In December, Canada’s top public health officer warned Canadians to sober up, noting that by and large, we have increased our alcohol consumption over the past 10 months.

what even is a weekend?

During the pandemic I stopped going out, yet every night felt like Friday and my alcohol consumption reflected this. My uncommitted relationship with booze became monogamous. This spring, a glass of wine became the reward for getting through days filled with uncertainty and feelings of inadequacy.

I was signing into Google classrooms, checking homework, monitoring screens and ensuring tablets were charging as required, all while managing my own full-time job and struggling to complete graduate school, which I did in a corner of my children’s playroom while they were sleeping. I was hanging onto my sanity with the lightest of grips, and for the first time in my life I was underperforming in every single subject.

There was comfort in knowing that I wasn’t alone. Friends, colleagues, strangers — we were all drowning, but most of us were too busy to notice the water rushing up past our ears. And all the memes that normalize how moms drink to cope gave me encouragement. See all those wine memes? Everyone does it!

Booze played an integral supporting role in this drama. Nightly wine (or sometimes blueberry gin mixed with elderflower tonic because I’m fancy like that) became a bright light; it became the raft I was swimming toward. When the screens blinked off for the day, when the kitchen was tidied and the house had settled into a blissful quiet, I’d shuffle into the kitchen, reach for my favourite glass and fill it up. I’d carry it with me to the coziest chair and cup that chalice with both hands, breathing deeply for the first time all day. As that first delicious sip wound its way into my belly I’d heave a great sigh. I made it through another day. Cheers!

Meditating or medicating?

A few months of this and I probably wouldn’t have noticed, but the pandemic didn’t stop, and what began as a treat ended up feeling more like a prescription.

When the BC Cancer Foundation launched its Loose the Booze fundraising campaign, I opted to challenge myself and I begged a few friends to join. It’s been two weeks, and I’m fine. As I suspected, tea is delicious and much less expensive, and there are a billion flavours of carbonated water, which is nice. I’m also snacking less — it turns out I make much better food choices when I’m not a tiny bit tipsy.

There’s relief in knowing that I can stop, and that I’m not a problem drinker. Yet. But if you try and can’t, you’re not alone, and there are services available.

And by all means, support our Lose the Booze team by donating to cancer research. Already, I’m feeling great about my decision, but with your support I’ll feel even better.

Posted on by Danna Bach

Let’s eat our feelings!

This is my first (and perhaps only) food post, and guess what, I’m going to post recipes, too, but in order to get to the recipe you have to read the entire post, where you’ll discover the complicated history of the sugar cookie and learn about how these cookies have become the soothing balm needed to heal my broken heart. Kidding! These are cookies, not tattoos!

I love baking. It’s something I’m decent at, and I’m a tiny bit proud of that.

Hands up if, as a kid, you thought your mom, or your grandma was the world’s most accomplished baker. I know I did. What I’ve come to realize, however, is that the reason their baking tasted so good is because we loved them so much. We associate the foods they prepared with the way their hands looked as they kneaded the dough, or the way we felt standing beside them on a stool us as we cracked our first egg.

But if there was a blind taste-test between samples of my baking and my moms, mine would win, no question. I don’t like to brag, but there it is. Sorry mom. You use too many raisins.

Mince? But why?

The first rule of Christmas baking is understanding what to bake vs. what to buy, and the second rule is understanding what to avoid entirely, like mince anything, or anything with candied fruit.

The only candied fruit that is allowed in my kitchen are red and green candied cherries. And the only place candied red and green cherries are allowed to exist is on top of a shortbread cookie.

My mom likes mincemeat and fruitcake. She also likes the hot cross buns that you buy at Easter with the colourful fruit inside. My problem with all of these baked goods isn’t necessarily taste, but texture. With mince and candied fruit there is an element of surprise that disturbs me. Take a bite, chew, chew, flavour is OK, and then BAM! weird unexplained crunch. It’s unsettling.

What to bake vs. what to buy

Another rule is to not waste time baking something complicated when there is a store-bought version that tastes almost as good and is significantly cheaper.

Like Nanaimo bars, for instance. You can buy an entire flat of delicious Nanaimo bars from Costco for $10. To purchase all of the ingredients to make your own you’re looking at $30 and about 2 hours in the kitchen. A person who makes $25 per hour just paid $80 for Nanaimo bars that would have cost $10 from Costco. This is what I refer to as “baking math.” It might be fundamentally flawed, but it’s worth considering.

Sometimes it’s OK to drink your calories

Furthermore, you can buy Forty Creek Nanaimo Bar Cream, which is the booze version of a Nanaimo bar that you can sip while you’re baking. Discovering this delightful concoction blew my mind, and if you haven’t heard of it yet, you’re welcome.

Let’s not get too fancy

Some of the most delicious baking is the simplest. Faux Almond Roca with a saltine base? Fancy? Heck no! Delicious? Absolutely! If you’re baking for family and friends, and for kids especially, these are the treats that get gobbled up, year after year.

These recipes are not complicated, because 1. It’s been a hard year, and baking shouldn’t stress you out, and 2. You might be drunk baking, in which case, simple is safe.

I’ll send you to Skinnytaste for another favourite of mine, which is a copycat version of Starbucks’ Cranberry Bliss Bars. These are so yummy, and they’re beautiful when packaged in a little gift box.

Sugar cookies with simple glaze
(head over to Pinterest for some cute decorating ideas)

This is the best sugar cookie recipe because it tastes amazing, and the dough is easy to work. Do not refrigerate the dough, just get busy rolling it out.

Ingredients (dough)

  • 1 cup butter, softened
  • 1 cup white granulated sugar
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 1 egg
  • 3 cups all-purpose flour
  • ½ tsp salt
  • 2 tsp baking powder

(For glaze)

  • 5-6 cups powdered sugar
  • ¼ cup milk (more or less, depending)
  • ¼ tsp almond flavouring (optional)
  • Gel food colour

Instructions (dough)

  1. Preheat oven to 350F
  2. Cream together the butter and sugar with a mixer until smooth
  3. Beat in vanilla and egg
  4. In another bowl, sift together flour, salt and baking powder
  5. Add dry ingredients to wet a little at a time, continuing to use mixer until everything is combined and the mixture is crumbly
  6. Wet your hands and knead the dough by hand. Separate it into 2 dough balls. Cover one with plastic wrap while you are rolling out the other (don’t chill the dough)
  7. Place the dough on a floured surface, sprinkle flour on top to prevent the rolling pin from sticking. Roll out until it is about ¼ inches thick (don’t roll too thin!)
  8. Cut out shapes, and transfer to parchment-lined baking sheets
  9. Bake at 350F for 8-10 mins
  10. Cool completely before icing

Instructions (glaze)

Dump ingredients into a bowl and mix together with a metal spoon or fork. I never actually measure out the powdered sugar. I usually just put about 5-6 cups into a bowl with about ¼ tsp of the almond flavour and maybe ¼ cup of milk, but slowly. You need the glaze to be relatively thin, so it comes out nicely from the piping bag. The glaze will harden after a few minutes. If you’re working with kids, I recommend avoiding piping bags to save your sanity and just giving them a bowl with a spoon and butter knife for spreading.

Haystack cookies (AKA chow mein noodle cookies)

My mom makes these every Christmas. Eat them over a plate because they’re a mess to eat, but so yummy.

Ingredients

  • ½ cup semisweet chocolate chips
  • ½ cup butterscotch chips
  • ½ cup chow mein noodles
  • ½ cup salted peanuts (you can use whole, or crush)

Note: Mess around with these. You’re going to want to double or triple this recipe. Also, if you’re like me and prefer chocolate over butterscotch, switch up the ratio, or replace the butterscotch with chocolate entirely. If you like butterscotch a lot (which just seems weird), toss the chocolate. These are YOUR cookies, so you do you! Try using pretzel bits, add a bit of coconut, or throw in mini marshmallows just for the heck of it. You really can’t screw up this recipe.

Directions

  1. In a microwave, melt chocolate and butterscotch chips, stir until smooth. Stir in noodles and peanuts until well coated
  2. Drop by rounded tablespoonfuls onto a parchment-lined baking sheet. Refrigerate for 2 hours, or until set
Posted on by Danna Bach

How I got scammed by a Facebook ad

Me showing off my fancy new winter boots.

How do you like my sunglasses? They’re actually winter boots! Amazing, right?

This magic illusion is made possible through a Facebook scam, of which I was a victim.

It’s humbling, being the victim of fraud. I watch the news all the time. I read about the women who are bilked out of thousands of dollars because they fall in love with fraudsters. The Canada Revenue Agency calls me routinely telling me that I have to act now (and send gift cards) before my case is sent before a tribunal.

I tuned those stories out, to be honest. After all, I’m too smart to be fooled by these fools. Too savvy to be scammed by these scammers.

But now the scammers are laughing at me. And so, to prevent anyone else from feeling as foolish as I do right now, I’m going to tell you a story.

I got greedy, and then I got fooled

About a month ago I was scrolling through social media and whizzing past all the ads showing women shaving their faces with giant, multi-bladed razors (do women do this?) or prancing around wearing leak-proof underwear. When, all of a sudden I saw an ad for Sorel boots and stopped scrolling.

The ad caught my eye because 1. I’m Canadian, and 2. Boots.

My current Sorel boots lasted longer than my marriage and I had been considering an upgrade, you know, for something a little more modern. A little less dated.

I’m still talking about the boots, folks. (Or am I?)

I hadn’t pulled the trigger on the boots because I wasn’t sure if I could afford them. Sorel boots can be pretty pricey.

As though reading my mind (as Facebook often does), this ad promised me Sorel boots for less than half of what I would normally pay. This broke mother said, “Heck yes!”

“This seems almost too good to be true,” I muttered to myself as I clicked through to the website, which was filled with pages and pages of Sorel boots. I found a pair for me. I found another pair for my fast-growing kid. I’m nothing if not a generous broke mother.

Buyer’s remorse sets in

Moments after completing the sale, I felt it: Dread. I sent the URL to a friend who explored the site’s code and gave me the bad news as gently as he could: “Dude. That site is fake. You’re not getting any damn boots. Dummy.”

He would prove correct. The company responded with an invoice, thanked me for my purchase and asked me for my patience as shipping would be delayed due to COVID-19. Two days later I received shipping information, telling me my package was en route from China.

Something shipped, but what?

What organization looks like.

I waited. I wondered. Should I call the bank now? How about now? Like I do with everything important, I wrote a reminder on a Post-It note and stuck it to my computer monitor.

And then yesterday my boots arrived! But wait, the box was adorably small for two pairs of winter boots.

Were they boots for ants?

No, indeed they were not boots for ants, they were actually sunglasses! Really fancy fake Ray-Ban sunglasses, with a nice little case and a lens cloth and everything!

As adorable as these sunglasses were, they were not $180 worth of winter boots.

Could I afford to learn from this?

There was a moment I considered doing nothing. It was my own fault. I should have known better. I was embarrassed.

Had my purchase been for $50 I probably would have done nothing. I might have even sucked up a charge for $100 and called it a life lesson.

But $180 is not nothing. So I peeled the Post-It from my monitor and called my bank.

An hour spent chatting with a great fraud investigator at BMO, and it appears I may someday get my money back.

In the meantime, here is a word of advice:

Shop local. Shopping local won’t prevent you from going to a shoe store and walking out with a fun new pair of sunglasses. But it will prevent the black magic of that can turn much needed winter boots into silly (but adorable) face accessories.

Posted on by Danna Bach · 4 Comments

This pandemic is making me less smart

I am convinced that living through a global pandemic is making me less smart dumber. 

The good news is that I’m not alone. The bad news is that I’m not alone. The American Council on Science and Health confirms (because I Googled it after the week that I’ve had) that The Coronavirus is Making us all Stupid. Friends of Richard A. Friedman, professor of clinical psychology at Cornell, confirm they are feeling “ tireder and dumber.” Years from now, when official research results roll in, I expect that we will learn that social isolation as a pandemic control measure has resulted in a stupider populace, however, I suspect and hope that when these controls lift, and when life returns to normal, we will regain our lost cognitive capacity. I certainly hope that the pandemic isn’t destroying brain cells, rather, that it is just rendering many of them dormant and ineffective.

You’re all getting dumber, too

I make this observation in part because every time I turn on the TV or read the news I see and hear people saying and doing really dumb stuff — and they’re not even trying to be sarcastic or ironic, they’re being serious. People are refusing to wear masks, believing that in doing so they’re jeopardizing their hard-won freedom to become ill and make those around them ill. There are more conspiracy theories circulating now than there have ever been, and people I know, like, and respect are buying into them.

But mostly it’s just me. Probably.

I make this observation mostly, however, because I keep doing really dumb things. What is interesting is that I can accomplish highly complicated tasks with ease, but the simple things trip me up. To combat this brain fog, the bottom of my computer monitor is dotted with Post-it-Notes, reminding me to do the basics.

“CHECK NAME SPELLING,” one note shouts, and yet already once this week I added an s to someone’s last name, and for no good reason. 

The notes, it seems, are only effective if you read them before you do something dumb.

Yesterday, I needed to send a message to a colleague. He is someone I speak with at least once a week. Scrolling through my Microsoft Teams contact list, I became frustrated. Where was he? Where did he go? 

It took several minutes of searching for Chad before it dawned on me. His name is Todd. It has always been Todd. What’s worse is that I don’t know a single Chad. Zero Chads orbit my sphere.

And then it was dinner time. For two nights in a row I’ve made Greek salad for dinner, and for two nights in a row I’ve sat down to consume the salad and thought: “What’s missing?”

As I was standing at the sink brushing my teeth before bed, I paused, stared at myself in the mirror, and yelled: “GREEN PEPPERS!”

As you may be aware, there are five basic ingredients to a Greek salad, not including dressing. It took me 48 hours to troubleshoot this mystery. 

Let’s keep the dumb moves in check, for a little longer

So, when our public health officer makes a public statement, warning us to keep to our “safe six,” and to have “fewer faces and bigger spaces,” it didn’t surprise me to turn around and see people planning birthday parties, and halloween parties. 

However, while we might be tempted to attribute our stupidity to pandemic-induced dumbness, that’s not cool. I eventually figured out what was missing from my salad. I eventually connected with Todd. My brain fog didn’t result in a mass spreading event and jeopardize the lives of those around me.

There’s a time and place to be dumb, and maybe in a few more months we can be really dumb once again with minor impact on those around us.

Our brains are melting due to this pandemic, however, if we ensure our stupidity is reserved for unsent emails and blasé salads we will get through this. Together.

And then we can go back to having intelligent conversations with new and interesting people and reverse the adverse side effects that this pandemic is having on our collective intelligence.  

Posted on by Danna Bach

Learning to take a compliment

Compliments are hard to manage for a well-adjusted woman, and even at my most confident I’ve never known what to do with them. However, right now, right in the midst of heartbreak and transition, if you give me a compliment I will poke a million holes in it. I will deflect like a boss. Make no mistake — I want the compliment, I just don’t know how to handle it when it arrives.

Example 1:

Them: “You look so beautiful in your photos!”
Me: “The photographer was amazing, and the lighting would have made a block of cheese look like a supermodel. We sure timed that right!”

Example 2: 
Them: “You have a real gift for writing, Danna.”
Me (via text to a friend): “How do I tell the difference between a pity, we-feel-sorry-for-you like, and a real like?”

When I’m wallowing there is not a compliment that I’ll believe, and there is not a nice thing you can say that I will trust entirely. 

(“Let’s face it,” sad me will say to myself, “if I were actually beautiful enough, then this probably wouldn’t be happening. If I were actually talented and funny and smart enough then I probably could have prevented my world from turning upside down.)  

But there is, thank Christ, a time limit on being pathetic. I can enjoy the food and music (sour jujubes and Adelle mostly), but I can’t move in and unpack. 

The antidote to being down in the dumps awash in self-pity, is, unsurprisingly, administered by women.

the gift of company

During my 42 years on this planet I’ve come to realize a universal truth  — the longer you live, the busier you become. I’ve heard life doesn’t even slow in retirement. Life, like skipping rope, just gets harder as you get older. And time for leisure becomes more scarce.

My own calendar is filled with work commitments, family commitments and other obligations, both in-person and virtual. There is never enough food in the fridge, the laundry is never done, and no matter how many times I walk the damn dog those big sad eyes will always be staring at me, begging for just one more trip around the ‘hood. I know I should go to bed earlier, but instead of sleeping I use the ever-shrinking time after the kids go to bed to tidy up, or to answer a couple of emails to get a head start on the next day.

There are always extra things to do. There is never extra time.

This is what life is like for all the women I know, but that hasn’t stopped them from showing up.

Despite the pressure put on these remarkable women to do everything and to be everything to everyone around them, they show up. These women are running businesses and raising families, but they pick up the phone and actually call. They give an hour, sometimes more, and fill up the silence that would otherwise eat me alive. 

They arrive, and they give, and holy shit, what a compliment. 

If I am enough for these women, then I am plenty. And even though you might not be able to hear it, or accept it, you, my friend, are pretty spectacular, too. 

Posted on by Danna Bach · 1 Comment

The labels we give ourselves

I have been called a lot of things, and those labels have changed over time. I have always been “daughter,” “granddaughter,” and “sister,” and one of my fondest labels is “friend.” Don’t get me started on the labels that were placed on me in high school, though thankfully I didn’t hang my identity on “band geek.” 

I was “journalist” for many years, which was a label I loved and have yet to remove completely; and of course, I have been “mom” for the past 11 years, which is label that has threaded itself into my DNA. 

For 14 years I was “wife”. It was a label I wore nearly as proudly as “mother.”

But today I am an ex. The prefix is one I actively resisted. This is not a label I longed for, in fact, it is one I actively dodged for more than two years.  

I had no interest in being single, separated, divorced. And yet here I am — two of those things, and probably months away from being the third. 

Today, I am somebody’s “ex”, whereas moments ago I was the same person’s partner. Ex is a label I’ve used a hundred times to refer to other people and their former partners, but when attached to me it feels wrong. I wanted to brush it off like a cobweb that I walked through on my way to take out the garbage; I wanted to cut it off carefully so as not to tear the fabric of my favourite shirt.

In pirate adventures, an x marks the spot where an amazing treasure is hidden, but put an e in front of that x and all you’ve got is a person with baggage and several sad stories to tell. Now that’s me: Teller of sad stories; carrier of baggage.

I’d much prefer being treasure. 

Today, I am an ex, and instead of being “parent”, I am (legally-speaking) a co-parent, which is another label that will no doubt give me a rash. As I get used to wearing these scratchy tags, I busy myself by unpacking in my new home, setting up my new space, and ensuring my children have two of everything so they never feel like guests, or have to live out of suitcases. 

And when I look up from my busyness, I realize that it is now dark outside and so quiet in this house. I’m spending my first nights alone. I miss the taken-for-granted moments. I miss the every-day silliness at the dinner table, and the serious talks before bed. I have heard from other moms — other exes and co-parents — that I will come to appreciate these quiet moments. That when I wash these labels enough they’ll become soft and comfortable. That when I watch my children thrive, I will relax, and I will be grateful for those tags.

But I’m not there yet. In the quiet moments, these first ones, the labels chafe and are unbearable.

Yes, children are resilient creatures, and I take comfort in this. But when it comes to the resiliency of this mother, this co-parent, and this ex, we will just have to wait and see.   

Posted on by Danna Bach

Building a fantasy quarantine team

I’ve been thinking about my massage therapist a lot these days.

I wonder how he’s doing, and how he’s keeping busy, and I’ll be honest, I’m a little envious of his wife who had the forethought to marry an RMT. Was he an RMT when they met, or did she direct him toward his career path? Either way, I consider her an absolute genius.

I did not pick my partner based on the skills he could bring to a pandemic. I mean, his sense of humour has been a blessing, and he is wicked good at making Excel spreadsheets, but he is not an RMT, or a chiropractor. Neither of us are particularly good teachers, either, as it turns out.

Who makes the team?spreadsheet

Determining my fantasy quarantine team has taken up quite a bit of my imagination over the past several weeks as I itemize specific skills and discount others. Until recently I didn’t realize how handy it would be to be socially isolated with a hair stylist, or an esthetician.

And I would trade all the Excel spreadsheets in the world in order to add a fitness trainer and a nutrition coach to my roster, as all this self-isolated snacking is getting decidedly out of hand.

I also wouldn’t mind adding a bartender and a barista to my team, either.

There is room on my team for a pet groomer. I was eyeing up my husband’s electric moustache trimmer recently and noted that it was the PERFECT size for trimming the fluff around my doodle’s backside, but after a few moments of reflection I opted against it (because I’m a good person, and that would be a mean thing to do).

Mostly, though, I just miss my massage therapist. Being socially isolated with someone of his talents would be wicked handy. My home office is not ergonomic, and this momma has a neck kink like nobody’s business.

Open to trades

What do I have to trade? I’ve got a couple of budding comedians and fashion critics on the block. One of them can tell you just about everything you will ever need to know about Pokemon, and can also relate any aspect of your life to a Garfield comic. The other one will regale you with ego-boosting observations like: “What are you even wearing? Your shirt is super wrinkled and looks weird, but your hair is the worst part.” When he’s not offering up unsolicited comments on your attire, he will just jump out at you with a surprise high kick, or tackle you into a mid-afternoon wrestle-hug, which is another reason I’m on the lookout for an RMT.

Who is on your fantasy quarantine team?

Posted on by Danna Bach

Cleaning with a vengeance

I had just completed my weekly rage-clean when I paused to admire my hard work and also to reflect upon whether this style of cleaning is typical.

Am I the only one who uses anger as detergent?

Certainly, my husband and I both rage clean to different extents. I rage clean the parts of the house that people see. He rage cleans places that are used so infrequently that you forgot they were even part of the house. Like the closet under the stairs that contains our stash of gift bags, loose tissue paper, buckets of unused paint and one red hummingbird feeder. Or he’ll clean the furnace room, or the shed. I’ve even seen him rage clean a fish tank.images

During pandemic season when we’re all cooped up inside, shedding our hair and skin cells, and dirty socks in the same square footage 24-hours a day, seven days a week, I have more opportunity to observe the personal hygiene of my family, and I am frankly appalled, which means there is more rage with which to clean than ever before.

The cycle of rage cleaning

It starts with a clean house; the floors are vacuumed and mopped, the kitchen sparkles, the bathroom mirrors are free of toothpaste and fingerprints. And then little by little it starts to happen.

First, maybe there are just a few crumbs under the kitchen table, which you sweep up because at the beginning you think you’ll be able to stay on top of it. Then there’s the single sock in the middle of the family room; beside it on the table is a partially empty water glass, and before you know it a plastic cup joins it. And then you turn your head and there’s a hoodie just lying in the middle of the floor with a granola wrapper beside it. You shout. Things get picked up, but never everything, and never in a timely fashion.

Then you walk into the bathroom, and what was clean yesterday is now covered in beard trimmings and when you look down all you see are pieces of your own long brown hair on the floor; look up, and you’ll likely even find it up there attached to the ceiling. What is the hair sticking to? Nobody knows.

You Lysol wipe the counter, but those wipes are hard to come by in a pandemic. And you think about vacuuming but to vacuum you have to pick up the 700 Nerf darts and 35 dog toys that are currently scattered around the house. It all seems impossible, so you just pour yourself a glass of wine because it’s 3 pm on a Wednesday, and you head outside because at least it’s clean out there, or sort of clean, because that’s where the dirt lives, and you’re basically just visiting the dirt at its own house, which is calming.

Eventually, however, you have to come back inside because that’s where the food is. Then you decide to make dinner, but to make dinner you have to find some counter space.

They break you

And that’s when it happens. You snap. It’s taken days to get here, but your family has finally broken you, and if you don’t rage you’ll cry, and dammit, you are NOT going to be bested by these little jerks that you birthed, so you slam the cupboard doors, toss plates into the dishwasher (thanking Jesus that you bought the ugly Corelle because it’s the only thing that stands up to a rage clean), and these sounds give notice: Everybody better pitch in or get the hell outta the way, because you have lost your ever loving mind, and the rage clean has begun.

16681986_601420956729865_4856545844268361857_nThe music is loud, but the house that was filled with animals, people and noise moments ago is now empty. Children who wouldn’t leave you alone long enough to take a 20-minute teleconference have all but disappeared into the mist. They have read the mood and scattered to the winds, giving you free reign to curse them loudly while they’re out of earshot. “They are SO GROSS! How are they so DISGUSTING! They are worse than ANIMALS! GAH!”

The heart rate monitor on your smart watch is pumping, because your rage burns calories; your rage gets shit done. Your rage is ALIVE!

But it’s for the greater good

Eventually it fizzles though, and you look around and realize that your house is clean again. You’ve ordered take out. The sound of the washing machine going through its final spin cycle is a lullaby. The vacuum hose gets wound up and tucked away in the closet, the floors are now dry, so the chairs come down from on top of the kitchen table. The gangsta rap that Alexa had pumped moments ago is suddenly Jack Johnson. You can hear the birds sing outside, and when your family returns from their sudden field trip to the driveway to play basketball you greet them with a smile and a “please hang up your hoodie.”

And that’s how it begins, for me, anyway.

Posted on by Danna Bach

The guilt of pandemic parenting

The guilt of parenting during a pandemic is heavier than any weighted blanket available on Amazon, and unlike a weighted blanket which is designed to reduce anxiety and improve sleep, it ratchets it up, and gives your brain more to consider as you lay awake, completely aware of how badly you’re failing at just about everything you’re doing right now.

Where I live, we’re in Week 3 of pandemic parenting, meaning while mom and dad work full time from home, we’re also providing full-time care to our children, which includes some educational instruction.

(I’d like to pause here and acknowledge that our pandemic situation is privileged. Privilege, in this case, looks like general good health, two parents, two pay cheques (for now), food in the fridge, an ample (but not excessive) amount of toilet paper, a bit of a backyard, and more sunny days than rainy ones. There’s even an uncertified therapy dog who is happy to absorb all of the angst and fear that comes from being locked up with your loved ones for days on end.)

I always wanted children, but I also knew that stay-at-home parenting was not my jam. I love grown-ups, and swearing, and solving grown-up problems. I love leaving behind my dirty laundry and mismatched socks in favour of a quiet office that I share with a five-year old orchid that blooms semi-annually. I love the sound of the office HVAC system, and I love my other office mate, a tiny blue space heater that only sees use in summer because the HVAC system lives in Opposite Land. I love going to work, I love being at work, and I love coming home from work to see faces I would die for — faces that I’ve missed so much and thought about so many times during the day. I love the car ride home from daycare because I get to hear all of their ridiculous stories. I love sharing adventures and kid gossip at the dinner table. I love weekends because it means I can stay home with my people because I miss them so much.

I always wanted children, but I also knew that teaching was not my jam. My mother is a teacher, my sister, too. I watch both and shake my head. Where they excel, I would flounder. Judging by my parenting style, if you put me in charge of a class full of 7-year-olds I would take turns bribing them with Dino-Sours and threatening to cancel Christmas. Adults, with their manners and passive-aggressive side-eyes, don’t scare me, but children are wise and cunning. Eventually they’d figure out that my threats are as empty as the bag of Dino-Sours that I inhaled in the cloak room. At which point I’d probably just run behind a plant and hide because 1. children are terrifying, 2. I have zero teaching tools and no desire to acquire them, and 3. unlike my sister and my mother, I lack the ultimate secret weapon: A teacher voice.

I always loved the routine provided by school, daycare and work, and the thrill I got from stacking all those perfect little glass jars so they balanced so perfectly and shone so beautifully that even the stiffest wind couldn’t knock them over. And yet here we are, in the midst of a pandemic, my glass jars of routine and sanity shattered on the driveway, and I am stuck in my house, working full time, parenting full time, and teaching, too.

I’ve got to say, I’m not a huge fan.

Screen Shot 2020-04-03 at 7.39.19 AMPandemic parenting means that I never get to miss my children, and they never get to miss each other. They are always here, always in my business and in each other’s. They wrestle constantly, stopping only when someone gets a bloody nose or a knee to the nuts, and when I suggest a directed drawing, some Reflex Math, or a visit to the Cincinnati Zoo (online, obviously), I’m met with a deep sigh and a “no thanks, I already know about hippos.”

Knees to the nuts it is, then.

And despite how much I joke about my lack of parenting skills, I always secretly thought I was pretty good at it. Until yesterday.

During my oldest child’s first Zoom videoconference with his class he opened up: “I miss everyone so much. I only ever get to talk to my little brother who argues all the time, or my mom and dad, and they’re always working.”

I overheard his comment while up in my office. Working.

And that, dear friends, is what parenting in a pandemic feels like — a heavy, weighted blanket of guilt — guilt that is bottomless and causes breathlessness even as I write it down.

 

Posted on by Danna Bach

Hey teacher, how about you pick the teams?

In honour of Pink Shirt Day how about we do something completely radical?

For one single day let’s cancel gym class, unilaterally — in every city, everywhere.

Or, maybe we could do something slightly less dramatic. Maybe we could implement a few minor changes. For starters, how about we end the time-honoured tradition of forcing children to line up while their peers select them for a team; a process that inevitably ends up with one child being the last selected, over and over again until he or she can finally opt out of gym as an elective in Grade 11.

Because really, what is this selection process if not socially acceptable bullying? Sure, it was how things worked in the 1980s when I was in elementary school, but that was before we wore pink shirts and used cute acronyms to describe ideal behaviour.

The fact is kids want to win. And while they may wish to be “Safe, Outstanding, Accountable, and Respectful (SOAR),” when you throw them into the Hunger Games Arena (or gymnasium) and tell them to pick their dodgeball team, they’re going to do the exact same thing we did when we were 10 and pick the kids who can throw hard and run fast. And the rest of the kids are going to stand in an ever-shrinking line with their cheeks burning just waiting for this humiliation to end.

I’ve written before about being a parent to child of many skills and talents, most of which are cerebral rather than physical. I adore my thoughtful, artistic son, the one who happily climbs trees and folds paper airplanes; the one who, if given a choice between a visit to the dentist and a stint on a soccer team, would choose his teeth every time.

But he must participate in gym, and generally he’s fine with it, though he cares little about whether he wins or loses. On this day, however, he cared. On this day he came home from school and told me of a day that “started off great, and then got worse.”

It was Tuesday. Gym day. His class was to play dodgeball, and two children were selected to choose teams.

“I was chosen first, which never happens,” he said, making me sigh.

But then his team started doing poorly, and another boy on his team took the loss seriously.

“He told me that I was the reason we were losing. And then I heard him tell his friend that he couldn’t believe I had been chosen first out of all the kids in the class. AND HE KNEW I COULD HEAR HIM!”

“What did you do,” I asked him.

“I turned to them and said, ‘hey, guys, I’m RIGHT HERE!’ And then they turned to me and said, ‘whatever.'”

What I heard from the story was that my son had been chosen first, and that another child was jealous. My son was steamed, and addressed it in the moment. The moment passed, they went back to class, and completed their day, but not without my son learning a harsh new lesson.

I’m not concerned about this child of mine. He is smart enough and has enough great friends that it doesn’t matter if he plays soccer or hockey, if he’s on the winning team or the losing team, or if gets picked first or picked last. Each day he comes home to a place where he is safe, he is loved, and if he ever feels like he can’t fight his own battles, he knows his home team will spring into action.

But I am concerned about gym class, especially for the kids who might not bounce back so easily. I bet if you did some research you’d discover school-aged bullying happens in a few key venues: The playground, online, and in gym class. We can’t cancel the internet, though it’d be nice to kill the comment section for a day. The kids need fresh air, so we can’t cancel recess. And as much as I personally would have liked to kibosh gym class to avoid the torture that was volleyball, I understand that kids need this, too.

However, in the 30-plus years since I was in elementary school, plenty has changed. Our kids are learning in entirely new ways and using new technologies. Cursive writing is dead, and report cards don’t even have grades anymore. Yet by all accounts gym class has stayed the same. Sure, physical activity is necessary. Sure, dodgeball may end up teaching more relevant skills than, say algebra, so I get we can’t cancel it. But in honour of Pink Shirt Day, maybe the bright lights among us can do something to make gym class slightly less cruel.

Maybe today on Pink Shirt Day the teacher can pick the teams.