Where it’s at

We took Farla to her 4 year old checkup. Four years old. Holy cheese on crackers, how time does fly. Farla doesn’t do tricks on demand, so when they asked her to stack three blocks she refused, then sneakily stacked them later while no one was watching. That’s my girl.

As we were getting ready to leave a new mother came out with a tiny bundle, following her was her mother and another tiny bundle. A mother and her mother and two tiny twins. The one time I brought my own mother with me to one of Farla’s checkups she had an insulin shock and I had to ask the doctor if they had any sweets. The doctor, a bit bothered, went to the office room in the back and brought me this little sliver of cake. A tiny sliver of cake, for a woman having an insulin shock. I felt so defeated and angry. At the doctor, shithead doctor, at my mom. Fuck this tiny sliver of cake, fuck my mom, fuck this noise.

I asked her on the phone if she would help us clean when she traveled up for Fante’s birth, of course she would. Fuhani asked if she could help him clean while I was in the hospital giving birth and recovering and she was hanging around the house playing with Farla. Sure thing. And yet, when I came home 2 nights later I had to get off my ass and start picking crap off the floor because she hadn’t bothered to help.

I ask her, again on the phone, if she can please come up for 4 days, no more. It’s awkward, she is my mom, but we can’t get along for more than 4 days, tops. So I ask and it’s awkward. Sure! Thing! she says. Sure thing. Four days, tops. And then? She books a round-trip of 7 - SEVEN - days.

It’s one thing that she is difficult and it’s not even about how irresponsible she is, how it’s never her fault but someone else’s or how I can’t depend on her when it would mean a lot to me to be able to. But when she starts making trouble with my husband, my family, that is where I draw the line. She has got no problem with Fuhani that can in any way compare with the problem I have with her, once she starts a shitstorm. The line, it has been drawn. This, right here is the line. Line, meet my mom.

Mother, meet my line.

Visits, here and there

My mom came for a visit and it was, hands down, the best visit in years. It’s not that we don’t get along (although, sometimes we don’t), it’s that, because the visits are few and far between, she has always booked them for a week or longer. Even when we are like peas in a pod, 7 days, or more, is just too much. This time it was 5 days and no one got their feelings hurt.

* * *

We had this years first heatwave. In fucking May, can you believe? I like summer, actually I love summer, but heatwaves can bite me. No one but Farla (of course, who else?) had any energy at the end of those hot days.

The weather is now a tolerable windy but sunny, perfect for spending time outside - that is until after midsummer when we will be hit with a swarm of horse-fucking-flies.

* * *

I love Finland. It’s been my home for almost a decade. This house feels like HOME to me, more-so than any other house or apartment I’ve lived in. Some things are still iffy about Finland, though, if you ask me.

Just last week when we went to a small local grocery store, to do our midweek shopping, an elderly lady started talking to Farla, who started giggling and hid behind me. The old lady looked up at me, then at Fuhani and says “I used to talk to children all the time but now I have to check who they’re with before I do.”

Yeah, cause you never know about those dark-skinned people.. And I am not even that exotic looking! I can’t imagine what kind of crap darker people than me have to put up with from the (racist) hillbillies of Finland.

* * *

Also last week, we went to the far-away-big-ass grocery store to stock up. It was the usual juggling of two children, carts and tons of bags. When we get back home I take Fante and head for the door (13 solid kilos worth of dead weight, FYI) and Fuhani is about to unload our groceries from the car AND THEY ARE NOT IN THE TRUNK!

Cue panic.

Fuhani says he is NOT going back, I say SILLY, of course you are! He thinks all is spoiled by now, I say SILLY, of course not!

Fuhani returns with our groceries plus a new regard for humanity. A securitas guard has seen us pull away from a cart full of groceries and puts the bags in cold storage. Fuhani tried to give him money (such is his gratitude!) but the guard refused - all part of the job, he says. Securitas FTW!

Mothering

The two first years of being a mother were very difficult for me. More so than I had expected. Fuhani was working for an abusive employer who would frequently make him work double shifts, weekends and occasionally told him to come back to work six hours after he left his shift. I would spend my days alone with the baby and a week could easily go by without Fuhani getting to see her, because he left before she woke up and came home after she went to bed.

That kind of stress aside, being a good mother isn’t something I just became after pushing out the baby. The physical stuff came easy for me, the breastfeeding (17 months, phew!), the changing of diapers, I knew instinctively how to hold her and how to soothe her. What I found hard, and what I’ve had to work hard on, is finding more patience, more compassion and more strength.

I look at Fante and, despite never getting to have me completely to himself, I still often think how lucky he is to have a big sister who taught me so much about being a mother. Because of her I have more patience, I have more compassion and I am much stronger.

Mother’s day is just as much about my children as it is about me.

Lose, win, lose

You lose some, you win some. I was quite optimistic when I got pregnant with Fante, hoping that Farla would love the new baby. I was still pretty optimistic when Fuhani brought her to the hospital to see her new baby brother for the first time, AND, even still, after she gave me the most poisonous look I have ever seen on her pretty little face. How dare you go make (and love) that red monstrosity, and god help you if it touches my stuff!

She is starting to warm up to him, after having spent the first six months of his life pretending he doesn’t exist, telling me to “put the baby back” (meaning, put the baby back in the bouncy seat and give me attention, duh!) except when she says it it’s “putenene baby bah-ck”. Yes, it slays me every time, too.

Anyway. So their siblinghood didn’t exactly start out the way I had hoped to imagine it would. You lose some.

Three and a half months ago we started to look for a way to get Farla into daycare. This is her third week of spending 5 hours a day, 3 days a week at a maximum-four-kids private daycare provider. We spent three agonizing months worrying about how she would cope with daycare. Would the other kids treat her well? Would she treat the other kids well? Would her daycare “mom” be a good fit or would she be a heartless crone who would not be won over by our daughter’s apparent charm? Would she cry? Would we?

Not one single time that we have dropped her off has she run back for a hug, not one single tear shed. She loves to go “wee” (the sound you make when you slide down a slide, dontchaknow!) and she loves the other kids and she loves her daycare mom. You win some.

She has still to eat a meal while away from us. We have a stubborn and very picky eater. (You lose some..)