Letters to My Daughter: Yesterday, I Marched

By Riot Trrrt

Posted on January 22, 2017

To My Lovely Daughter,

Yesterday, I marched with 250,000 at a Woman’s March, held on the day after Donald Trump’s inauguration.   I marched because an irrational, childlike bigot who brags about sexual predation and flip-flops on abortion rights was just elected to office.  I marched because I’ve never understood how people don’t see a connection between women’s rights and abortion rights.  I marched because I hated feeling substandard for being a girl in college.  I marched for everytime a man cut me off or talked down to me when having a political argument.  I marched because I hate the idea of you growing up with a president who brags about groping women.  I marched because I hate the fact that I was groped one night in a bar and I froze.  I marched because I’m tired.  I’m tired of having to justify being mad, being heard, being female. 

I will never consider it a dirty word to be a feminist, the same way it will never be a dirty word to be Muslim, Jewish, black, white, or poor.  I will never consider it wrong for you to love pink.  I will play princesses with you.  I will play ninjas with you.  I will each you math.  I will do your hair, and I will teach you how to throw both softballs and a punches.

I will not teach you how to throw a football.  My spiral is nonexistent.  But I will find someone to do it when the time comes.  Try your father.   He might know.

I will teach you everything I can so that you never feel like you do not matter because you are a girl.  I will keep marching so that you will make the same amount of money as that bro you work with.  What I will not do is be quiet.  I will not sit down.  I will not shut up and I sure as hell will never back down from the fight. 

Yesterday, I looked around and realized I was surrounded with the young and old. With blacks, whites, and people of all sorts of other races.  With men.  With those who are transgender.  You’ve come with me on these marches before.  You came with me the last time I marched, when you were still in my belly.  Your little sibling was with me this time, but I waddled down the street with my head held high.  I felt guilty that I didn’t bring you this time, but I was afraid of something going wrong.  If something were to happen to me, I wanted you to be safe and grow up knowing that I went down fighting. 

Because that is what I do.  I fight.  It is what I will always do, and I do it because someday I hope that you won’t have to.  It blows my mind everyday that I’m still protesting this shit, but as long as I have to, I will fight.

Love,

Mom

About the Author:

A master of dry sarcasm, I’ve devoted my life to the pursuit of knowledge and good music, subverting the system, celebrating good times, enjoying the weirdness of life, pointing out the ridiculous, and helping others. I consider myself a breaker of glass ceilings/chains, a fighter of equal rights, and a lover of chocolate chip cookies.

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Letters to My Daughter: On the Eve of the Inauguration…

By Jurassic Tart
Posted on Sunday, January 22, 2017

Dear Daughters,

I have avoided writing you this letter for a couple of months, despite the fact that I have been warned that I should. People who have lived in totalitarian countries where the threat of violence is much more real have urged the writing of such letters, so that we do not forget. I do not like writing, so I put it off. I also do not really take seriously the idea of being disappeared in the middle of the night, so I have put it off. But the time has come. An unpredictable, dangerous man will be President of the United States at noon tomorrow, and I have no idea what the future has in store. I have put my names on multiple petitions and open letters, so should we see squads who disappear people, I will almost certainly be among the disappeared.

Let me start by telling you who I am. Above all, I am a fierce feminist. I am a woman in science. I have fought a lot of battles for women. Admittedly, I was once part of the problem. I was raised in a very conservative, patriarchical society, and it took years for me to accept women and men as true equals. It took years for me to believe that women could govern their own bodies, that harassment was wrong in all its forms, and women could be both victims and perpetrators. The great lie, the lie that the patriarchy is founded upon, is that women are not equal and we need chivalrous defenders. This lie hurts men and women both, though I won’t presume to be an expert and detail it all here. The evidence is too great anyways. But, in short, we need protection because we are weaker than men, we are unable to protect ourselves, and we deserve protection because we are pious protectors of society’s morals. This sells short the strength of women. We are also capable of hurting and harassing others because women are capable of evil. We must reject the myth that we are angels. We are human. For full rights, we need to be seen as human.


Hillary Clinton was also a fierce feminist. Books will be written on her, so I won’t do that here. I was so looking forward to telling you all about our first female president. A female president was something I had been actively discussing with my friends since high school. I have had multiple friends who were ready to commit to a life of service so one day they could have the job. Perhaps one of them will. But we always knew how tough it would be. Even at 16, we talked about how people will perceive our periods, and one of my friends said she was planning on getting a hysterectomy just so people couldn’t blame any of her presidential decision making on her period. At 16, we knew what was up. We knew how this world saw women, even if we didn’t fully understand where these ideas came from, how widespread they were, or how to fight them. I hoped for Hillary specifically since 2007. I had dreams of working in her administration. When she lost the primary to Obama, I was certain she would win in 2016. I was so certain. And when she didn’t? I fell into a depression I’ve never really recovered from. My entire journey as a women, my life as a feminist, what the hell is it all for? I thought we were due for a win. We weren’t. Instead, I got schooled, like so many disenfranchised people have been schooled for millennia, and it fucking hurts. My heart has been ripped out and stomped on, and in truth, it feels like 9/11 all over again. The loss is immense. It’s a loss of self and country and future and safety. It’s everything. The future is dark now, and I do not understand it.

Now, a dangerous man is president. I don’t know how dangerous. I hope he is just a silly idiot who will only shoot himself in the foot. I fear this is not the case. In 2015, I went to Crete for a conference. There were big, dramatic signs hanging on the sides of cliffs over the ocean saying “Refugees Welcome Here” in Greek. It did not matter much. Crete is on the other side of Greece—away from the refugees—away from where it costs very much to say such things. I saw such a broken a country….but also not very broken. Not Syria broken. We all sat around the conference dinner table in September 2015, and we Americans assured our foreign astronomy counterparts that Trump was a fluke. He would never win. In August 2016, we were all together at another conference, and we were reminded. A UK compatriot pointed at us, he said, “you and you and you and you, you all promised me he was joke, he would never amount to anything.” We said, “really? We said such things? Oh but that was a long time ago. I don’t remember. And anyways, he will not win.”

I have spent countless hours wondering how dangerous this new President is. Shall we walk through the possibilities together? Let’s.

1. Nuclear war. A distinct possibility given his kindergarten penchant for ranting against superpowers on fucking Twitter. If this is the case, then I hate to tell you that we live in the fall-out range of one of the premier targets of the US, so we will all be getting cancer, if we survive the blast. I’m sorry that we don’t have the resources to immediately move you to Canada, where it is presumably safer from nuclear winter. But parents throughout history, including present day, do not often have the resources to save their children from horrible, preventable, fates. C’est la vie.
2. Muslim registry. I can almost guarantee this is going to happen. Xenophobia in this country is high. We have been hostile to the Muslims since 9/11, probably before that, but I was a child then and don’t really know. Trump has already talked about this. All that has to happen for it to be a reality is another terrorist attack in the US. That will sway public opinion, increase fear, Trump and republicans will do more fear-mongering, and we will have a registry. Now, the question is, what does that mean? Are we talking deportations? Internment camps? Death camps? I do not know. But we have a lot of innocent Muslims in this country, and very soon, they may need our help. See, any kind of unconstitutional law or executive order takes time to be challenged. And the next member of the Supreme Court will be very conservative, so there is no guarantee it will be overturned. But regardless, a lot of damage can be done in between the time an order is handed down and the time the Supreme Court writes its decision.
3. Mass deportation of immigrants. Again, this is almost certainly going to happen. See above.
4. Loss of women’s rights. So many things fall under this category. You will probably lose them all. Almost certainly, we will lose the fight for abortion rights. Abortion rights have been rolled back severely in the past couple of decades. With a conservative judge on the Supreme Court, Roe v. Wade will be overturned. This country hates women. Oh, right, no, people will tell you that we don’t hate women. We love them. We must chivalrously protect them. Meaning that women are not humans who can make their own decisions. Birth control affordability will disappear. Any progress on investigating college sexual assaults will disappear, since our President is the Assaulter in Chief. Paid maternity leave? There’s an outside chance, since the daughter of the Assaulter in Chief, whom he has described lecherous thoughts towards, supports this. But is paid maternity leave a gain? I would argue not, since it still presumes that women are responsible for the majority of the childcare. We need parental leave, like most first world countries have. But our President is a man’s man, so forget it.

There are many many more horrible possibilities. These are the ones that keep me up at night. These are the ones that make me wish I had the resources to flee the country with you.

I do not know what will become of women in Donald Trump’s world. I doubt it will be good. Read The Handmaid’s Tale. Study it. This could literally be your future. Never forget this. You think it won’t be. Everyone thinks it won’t be. But how many Senators are women? How many Congresswomen? How many CEOs of banks? Here’s how The Handmaid’s Tale started—a fascist regime decided it wanted a return to traditional values so the strong male majority in the senate passed a bill that women’s bank accounts would be frozen and therefore, they had no money to leave the country. You think this couldn’t happen? You are wrong. The worst can always happen. We were complacent in 2015 and 2016. If you ever think a thing can’t happen, ask yourself, how many men are in power? Maybe 8% of those are true feminists. How many women are in power? Maybe 30% (possibly higher) have internalized misogyny. Do the math. Can it happen? Yes, it can. You are in danger, always.

I have thought a lot about this moment, this moment where I would have to make a choice about who I was. I have always imagined myself a revolutionary, before I actually considered the need might ever really arise. But here it is. How dangerous is a Trump Presidency to me? Well, this is a man who has asked for the names of government employees who are climate change sympathizers. Anytime a government asks for names of people who have participated in innocuous activities, it’s not good. In fact, it is a huge red flag. At best, we can expect a political blacklist. In which case, my name will likely be on it, and we will struggle for money if I can’t find a job outside the US. At worst, such lists lead to thoughts of kidnappings in the middle of the night.

If it turns out Muslims have to go to internment camps, or face mass deportations back to a hostile homeland, a very real possibility, and our friends ask for our help, then we will help. This could be very dangerous to us. I have thought a lot about how dangerous this could be. At times, I want to say that we will always choose our own safety first, I will keep you safe no matter what, and I will keep me safe. But I cannot promise you this. I know, as your mother, you expect me to promise you this. I want to, but I can’t. You see, as humans, we have this incredibly capacity to put our ideals about all else. And, would I be comfortable, knowing my family was fine, but the family next door was being hauled off to the proverbial gas chamber? Honestly, sometimes, the answer is yes. Do not ever be afraid to say that. That’s human nature. To fight human nature, we must recognize it first. And I feel human nature deeply, because I have you. But, more than my desire to live with you forever in a land of safety, is my desire to always fight for my neighbor. We are the kind of people who help people. We are the kind of people who die for people. I want you to be that person too.

And so, my children, on the eve of the inauguration of someone who make go down as one of the great despots in history, you may ask where your father and I were. We were at home, packing our bags, readying to go protest. We have already begun volunteering with refugees here and becoming local activists for political causes we believed in. Now, we are heading to D.C. to join the national cause. When the world went to hell, your father and I were on the front lines, fighting for rights and freedoms for all peoples. If you are reading this letter alone, rather than me reading it to you as I want to one day, then I hope you too are also on the front lines. Follow in our footsteps. Fight.

Love,


Your mother




About the Author:

I am a scientist and mother of twin girls. I enjoy murder mysteries and feminism. My best friends currently reside on the Internet.

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Carrot and Orange Cake

By Treacle Tart

Posted on January 1st, 2017

This cake recipe came about when I had oranges leftover from making marmalade and my mum had received a large number of carrots in her weekly veg box. The cake recipe itself is loosely based on a Rachel Allen Carrot Cake recipe and the icing is Nigella's from her Guinness Chocolate Cake recipe in Feast, but orangified.

This cake is perfect for mums as it's vaguely healthy sounding so we can indulge ourselves and (maybe) give a slice to the kids without any guilt, sure it’s practically one of your Five a Day!

Ingredients:

Eggs 2

Caster Sugar 200g

Sunflower Oil 140 ml

Carrots (grated weight) 250g

Oranges (zest and juice) 2

Mixed Nuts 100g

Raisins 100g

Self-Raising Flour 200g

Bicarbonate of Soda ½ tsp

Cinnamon 1 tsp

Nutmeg ½ tsp

Mixed Spice ½ tsp

Cream Cheese 225g

Icing Sugar 150g

Cream 100ml

Other Requirements:

20cm round cake tin with a depth of about 9cm, baking parchment, mixing bowl, grater, wooden spoon, whisk (electric or otherwise), spatula, cooling rack

Method:

The first thing that has to be done is to line your cake tin with the baking parchment so that the cake won't stick to it while cooking. Put your cake tin onto the baking parchment and draw around it with a pen or pencil. Cut out the circle and leave to one side. Next, cut a strip of parchment that will fit around the interior of the tin and snip into one long side of the paper at regular intervals to a depth of about 2 cm to create a fringe. This will help the paper sit better in the tin.

Grease the tin with an old butter wrapper or a bit of parchment with butter/marg on it and add the long fringed piece of paper to the tin. Add the circle of parchment to the bottom and you're done. Leave the tin to one side till later.

It's best to do all your grating first to get it out of the way. Grate the carrots, I found that 5 medium carrots gave me 250g when grated. Remove the zest from one the oranges with a fine grater or zester and then juice the orange. Keep everything in easy grabbing distance for the next bit.

Preheat the oven to 150°C.

Break the eggs into the bowl and add the sugar and oil. Whisk the ingredients together until you have a smooth batter. Add the carrots and stir through. Add the nuts, raisins and orange zest.

Mix thoroughly and add the flour and bicarbonate of soda. This is also the point to add the spices; cinnamon, mixed spice and nutmeg. Carefully fold in all the dry ingredients and ensure that there are no lumpy bits. Last ingredient to be mixed in is a tablespoon of the orange juice.

Pour the mixture into the prepared cake tin and place in the oven for 1 - 1¼ hours until a skewer comes out clean. While the cake is cooking, make up the cream cheese icing.

Zest and juice the remaining orange and put to one side for the moment. Put the cream cheese into a bowl and whisk until smooth. Sieve the icing into the bowl and whisk into the cream cheese. Pour in the cream and whisk into the cream cheese and icing sugar mixture. You will need to whip the icing for at least 2 -3 minutes at this point until it is quite stiff in texture.

Add the orange zest and 3 tablespoons juice. Once again whisk everything up until smooth and orangey tasting. If the icing gets a little loose and runny at this point, add some more icing sugar, a little at a time, whisking thoroughly between each addition until it stiffens up.

Once everything’s mixed together, again until quite stiff in texture, put the mixture into the fridge until it's needed.

By now the cake should be finished baking. Remove from the oven and allow to cool in its tin for about 5 minutes. When the cake is a little cooler, take it out of the tin, remove the baking parchment, and leave to cool on the wire rack.

When the cake is cool, put on a fancy plate and ice, using the cream cheese icing in the fridge.

Decorate the cake with slices of orange and serve to your very impressed friends and family.

About the Author:

Irish mother of one and stepmother to four. Married to a Wiccan. Pro-choice, extended breastfeeding feminist. Enjoys cooking, reading, watching films. Needs to learn to write more entertaining bios.

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Tart Reviews: The Girl Who Raced Fairyland All The Way Home

By Agent Tarter

Posted on January 1st, 2017

Written by Catherynne M. Valente, illustrated by Ana Juan, age 10 and up

If you’re a fantasy fan and haven’t discovered Valente’s Fairyland series yet, I suggest you get reading! The Girl Who Raced Fairyland All The Way Home is the finale of this remarkable series of five books. The story began when Valente crowdfunded the publication of the first book, The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making. It was published online before being picked up by a publisher, and made history by becoming the first book to win a Nebula award before traditional publication.

The Fairyland series follows September, a 12-year-old girl from Nebraska during the second World War, after she accepts the Green Wind’s offer of an adventure into Fairyland. The feel of the books strikes me as very similar to Lewis Carroll’s Wonderland, capturing the same sense of sometimes terrifying wonder and strangeness. The denizens of Fairyland are far more True Fae than sanitized fairy tale, and while the books are recommended for age 10 and up, there are plenty of references for adults to enjoy.

In this final volume, September has been crowned the Queen of Fairyland, but to keep her crown, she must compete in the Royal Race, a Cantankerous Derby to find the Heart of Fairyland. Of course, first you must identify what the Heart of Fairyland is. In the process, September will rediscover old friends and old enemies, and face the terrifying possibility that Saturday, her marid maybe-more-than-a-friend, is going to lose all memory of her. She also wrestles with two sides of herself: the Engineer who is determined to win this race, and the girl who misses her family and wants to go home.

Valente’s writing is, as always, full of vivid descriptions, and as a result it’s probably best for stronger readers in the middle-grade group. One of my favourite touches from the series is the very obvious narrator who plays with the conventions of story. A passage I particularly loved in this book is when the Marquess, September’s rival, nearly arrives too late for the Derby, and the narrator explains: “I must admit: The Marquess actually overslept on the morning of the Cantankerous Derby….But I woke her….You might think it wicked of me – why not let that awful lady sleep through to the end of time? But, darlings, I have many more stories than September’s to look after, and I cannot neglect even one of them.”

Similarly, I have always enjoyed how Valente tackles typical tween and teen feelings of isolation and struggles to fit in, despite her rather fantastical setting. In a lovely moment early in the book – one which will probably speak to many adult readers – Hawthorn, a changeling who grew up in the human world and found his way back to Fairyland, challenges September by saying that he can’t trust a human: “You don’t know what it’s like to always, always feel that you don’t belong, to your family, to your city, or your school, knowing there’s something different about you, something off, that you’re not like theothers, that you’re an alien all alone.” The narrator’s response is one of the more poignant moments from the series: “Oh, but Hawthorn, my best and dearest boy….No one belongs when they are new to this world. All children are Changelings.”

As an end to the series, this volume is quite satisfying, tying up many lose ends and bringing back many intriguing characters from earlier books, even as it incorporates new ones into a very busy story. However, the cast of thousands starts to tell at the end. The pacing seems slightly off, as things feel increasingly rushed closer to the end. This may have been a deliberate attempt to capture the urgency of the Derby, but instead, it leaves the book feeling slightly unfinished, as if a deadline were approaching and Valente didn’t have the opportunity to flesh out final chapters as much as she did the earlier ones.

Without getting into spoilers, the tension of September’s choice between continued life in Fairyland and missing her family has an unexpected end – and not one every reader will enjoy. Personally, I found the result a little disappointing and a little too pat, with the characters getting much of what they want with little sacrifice.

However, the last two chapters in particular are a beautiful testament to the power of story. “This is my last magic trick, the curious wizardry of narrators….Endings are rubbish. No such thing. Never has been, never will be. There is only the place where you choose to stop talking. Everything else goes on forever….Sometimes I will be young, and sometimes I will be old, and sometimes you will be young, and sometimes you will be old. But for as long as forever, I will keep a room for you.”

Whether you like September’s particular ending or not, fans of the Fairyland series will find this a satisfying ending, suitably exciting and tense – and, of course, magical and fantastic. If you’re new to the Fairyland series, make sure you start at the beginning, but dive in! It’s a journey you won’t regret making.

About the Author: 
Avid reader, budding writer, incessant singer. Married to a partner with OCD and parent of a child with autism. My opinions may be slanted by my experiences living in the socialist paradise of Canada.

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Full Bellies – “You’re still feeding him yourself?”

By Treacle Tart

Posted on January 1st, 2017

As I write this, my 18 month old little boy is contentedly nursing from my left breast. This is not the norm in Ireland.

We have some of the lowest breastfeeding rates in the world, on leaving hospital 56% of women said they were breastfeeding, by 6 months this has dropped to 6% and once you pass the the 12 month mark it drops again to 2%.

From the moment I knew I was pregnant, I wanted to breastfeed. My mum had nursed both myself and my sister and we have a close family friend who is a lactation consultant. In fact, she and my mum were founding members of Cuidiú, a breastfeeding support group here in Ireland, back in the 1980’s. So I was well educated on the benefits of breastfeeding and knew I would have the support from my family and my husband, who is a big breastfeeding advocate. Also, to be honest, we could not have really afforded the cost of formula in our family budget.

I had some issues to begin with, notably vasospasms, which are linked with Raynaud’s phenomenon, where the blood flow rushes away from the nipple in the cold and when the baby latches on it all comes rushes back and is very painful. But these were easily treatable by stuffing those instant handwarmers down my top and avoiding the freezer aisle in supermarkets.

But all in all breastfeeding has been easy for me and I enjoy it. I love the closeness of holding my little boy close last thing at night as he drifts off to sleep, or when we get home from daycare and he has a little feed for comfort and reassurance.

The trouble has been with people outside of my little bubble of support. It started at about 4 months old when, traditionally, weaning onto solids starts (this is despite guideline issued by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the Irish Health Service Executive (HSE) who both recommend not starting solids until 6 months).

“Are you still feeding him yourself?”

“Yes I am”

“Are you sure he’s getting enough food, should you not be starting solids?”

“No, he’s doing fine. He’s in the top percentiles for height and weight. Besides it’s not advisable to start solids until 6 months according to the WHO and HSE, so I’m waiting till then”

They generally have no comeback to that. But then you hit 6 months old and people are still asking “Are you feeding him yourself?” and when you say you are, they start to tell you that you’re spoiling your child (!) and you get a lot of side eye, which only gets worse as your child gets older.

It also doesn’t help that in Ireland if you have any kind of problem with breastfeeding that your GP, unless you are very lucky, will immediately suggest formula unless you fight and insist. This is despite the guidelines issued by the HSE that healthcare professionals in Ireland are supposed to be supporting and helping improve the breastfeeding rate.

So while I have no problem with mums who decide to formula feed, for whatever reason (I am definitely in the a fed baby is best), I find it hard to read positive formula feeding posts because they add to the feelings of pressure I am constantly getting every day to stop breastfeeding.

I have tried to analyse this feeling. Do I care what other people think about my breastfeeding a toddler? No, not really, he needs the nourishment and comfort it brings and that’s more important that other people’s opinions. Do I feel uncomfortable with formula feeding and feel like breastfeeding is superior? No, however anyone else wants to feed their child is no business of mine, so long as that child is fed.

The only thing I can come up with is that for so long I’ve been taking in the message that formula is the best way to feed a baby – through the endless advertisements on tv for follow on milk (a completely made up product), brochures that purport to support breastfeeding, but are sponsored by formula companies and put forth a lot of false information about it – that I am defensive about my decision to continue to nurse my child until he weans himself (or I get really sick of it, but that hasn’t happened yet).

So while I understand when my friends in other countries complain about how breastfeeding is pushed at them with the exclusion of everything else, I wish we had that problem and I wouldn’t feel like I was a weirdo for wanting to feed my child the way nature intended.

About the Author:
Irish mother of one and stepmother to four. Married to a Wiccan. Pro-choice, extended breastfeeding feminist. Enjoys cooking, reading, watching films. Needs to learn how to write more entertaining bios.

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The Childfree Staycation

By The Dowager Tartess
Posted on Tuesday, July 26th, 2016

This week, my husband and I pretend we’re childfree, at least during daytime hours. This summer we’ve taken two weeks off together, and we’re now in the second week.

The first week? Well, that was spent in full family mode, with a road trip to our shared hometown, overnight visits with the in-laws, lots of driving, swimming, getting our 3-year-old son to sleep in new locations, and numerous frustrating amounts of correcting said 3-year-old’s antagonizing behaviour as he ran us ragged, overstimulated and testing every boundary again and again and again.

I hear it’s unfashionable presently to give time outs, but fuck off with that, I use the time outs-- drag them from my cold dead hands. It was either that or shake him while I hollered “Why won’t you listen?!” So he got the time outs at three separate locations while we tried to instil in him the importance of still needing to act right in exotic locations like Grandpa’s house.

And despite my griping, it was a good trip. Our son had fun, we visited family he rarely sees, introduced him to swimming in a lake, and made memories. And even though it’s hard on us travelling out of town for a week, we still look forward to the time together as a family. We do it every year. 

But the week after, this week, this belongs to us, just husband and wife. And it’s sorely needed to recover from the intensive family time.

This week, we have been sending our son to daycare, lying through our teeth that we have to “go to the office.” Then we spend our day doing whatever we want.

My husband has been taking long walks after dropping our son off, playing Pokemon Go and taking pictures. I’ve been sleeping in. Then we go out for brunch, playing Pokemon along the way (Yes, Pokemon has been featuring heavily in this week off and it’s been awesome).

We’ve gone shopping and walking, we’ve talked and we’ve been quiet together. We saw Ghostbusters and we’re going to see Star Trek on Friday. We so rarely ever get out to the movies. Babysitters are expensive. We’re probably blowing a little more money than we ought to on eating out this week, but that’s also something else we rarely do. Oh, we take our son out to eat, but those outings are not fully relaxing, as we have to keep his behaviour in line and sometimes remove him from the restaurant if he misbehaves.

Around 3:00, time almost seems to speed up and I have to consider where we are and what we’re doing, because we pick him up at 5:15, like we do when we’re working, and I don’t want to be late because I was too caught up enjoying myself. 

And when I pick up my son, he runs into my arms and gives me the highlighted news of the day, “No accidents!” being the best sort of news because it means potty training is on track, and his eyes are glowing and proud of himself. Sometimes he adds, “I’m happy!” or even cuter, “You’re happy!” And I am happy. 

And we walk home together, and we’ve been stopping into the corner store to buy a popsicle to share because it’s so damn hot and I want to give us a little treat and make him happy, because it’s been a nice day. 

I think he’s onto us, though. We probably haven’t been at all as careful as we needed to be in discussing this week off. He tells us, “I want to stay home tomorrow.” He never asks us that. We tell him no, because we won’t be here. Which is true; we haven’t been staying home. He accepts this, although he doesn’t seem entirely convinced. 

But I am convinced, that this week has been exactly what my husband and I needed, to remind us that we aren’t just parents, that we’re a couple and that we really enjoy each other’s company. Sometimes I forget he’s my best friend because we’re squabbling over household nonsense or we’re tired from work.

Today, while I was lingering over potato waffles with sour cream, bacon and chives, I was trying to be in the moment. This delicious brunch was going to end, the day was going to come to a close and the week would be over before I knew it. But along with my waffles, I was tasting my pre-motherhood life and I was loving it. I was feeling free and unencumbered. 

I suppose I should have felt guilty. I know I’m supposed to. Bloggers make sure to mention mom guilt all the time. And I should write something about missing my child.

But I didn’t feel guilty and I didn’t miss him. I just spent a week giving him a quality childhood summer experience, and even with all the madness it was a great time together. It’s the sort of family tradition you look back on fondly once you’ve recovered from it all. But my husband and I also deserve a week for ourselves, and memories that only include us. I don’t question this.

Two more days left at the time of writing. Two more days of luxuriating in each other’s company and throwing responsibilities to the wind. And then we have two birthday parties to take our son to on the weekend, and then work. And life will resume as normal. 

About the Author:
Canadian underachiever, mom of one, writer, occasional artist, and a silly goose.

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It's Just an Infection: Life Goes On

By The Tart from Down Under

Posted on Wednesday, July 20th, 2016

This post is a follow up to It’s Just an Infection and Leaving.


It seems cliche to write, but life does go on, and I had to go back to mine. Only five days had passed since Mr. Down Under had a heart attack, but it was Monday morning and I had to go back to work. I worked as a child care worker, however, Mr. Down Under was the larger income earner in our relationship. So with him in hospital, money was going to be tricky. Luckily we had been saving for a house deposit, so we were going to be ok financially.

I don’t want to make this post about the medical system, but here in Australia it is fantastic. We have a public system that taxes higher earners at a higher rate to cover medical, and even have a small levy included in our car registration to cover any ambulance usage. With everything Mr. Down Under had been through, and would continued to go through, even though he is not an Australian citizen (he is a permanent resident, and New Zealand citizen) we were not charged for a single dollar of his care. And I will always be so thankful for that. Just continuing to cover our daily life costs was a struggle and reduced our savings to nothing.

Now, 48 hours doesn’t sound like an extraordinary amount of time, but it felt like a long time. I had to push past the fact that someone I loved was sick, and we didn’t know what was coming next. 48 hours were how long we had to wait for doctors to decide that Mr. Down Under’s oxygen saturation levels had stabilized enough to be able to come partially out of sedation.

It finally felt like it was going to be ok, there had been setbacks, but doctors were able to bring Mr. Down Under out of sedation without any immediate issues. He still had a breathing tube inserted and was being assisted with oxygen, but he had improved. The first night I came in and he was awake, there was fear, both his and mine. He held my hand and stared at me the entire time I was there. It was the first time I remember having seen him scared. With a breathing tube inserted we weren’t able to talk, but when the end of visiting hours came, Mr. Down Under made it very clear he didn’t want me to leave. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to stay.

A pattern emerged for me. My life became wake up, go to work, go to the hospital, sleep and begin again. I felt exhausted both physically and emotionally. Working with children made my days especially difficult. I couldn’t let myself feel too much. I had to put on a happy face for the parents and my kids. My assistant at the time was a close friend.  She had been and sat with me at the hospital and knew everything that was happening. It made it easier that someone was there with me that knew the extent of what was going on, understood my low points, and was kind enough to help pick up anything I had missed during my working hours.

Removing the breathing tube was the next step, and in doing so the doctors found that Mr. Down Under’s throat muscles had deteriorated. It was a risk that they were aware of, but the damage was normally minimal. Not Mr. Down Under, he had to stand out and be different. In this case, the damage from the breathing tube had been significant, meaning he was unable to talk, eat or drink, and doctors informed us they were unsure how well the muscles would recover.

The good news was that with being off oxygen Mr. Down Under could finally leave ICU and be moved onto a normal ward. The battle had been won, but the war was just beginning.



About the Author:
A 28 year old Aussie, from the beautiful South-East of Queensland, a lover of chocolate, good white wine and books, I'm an almost married mum to two, aged 1 and 3, who is pro-vax, pro-choice and pro-you do you. My partner and I run a small business from home.

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