Had an email today from one of my earliest editors at the Hamilton Spec. He’s long moved on, but he’d been going through his files and thought this would give me a laugh.
It’s my very first Motherlode column.
First anything, actually. Several things will jump out at you (apart from how much I wish I could go back and rewrite it), most obviously are the names. For a year, I wrote as Maggie Newley. Maggie is, well, Maggie the Cat’s name. Growing up, our cat’s name was Nooly. The kids got rechristened (Christopher became Marc, which he hated, and Ari became Jackson, which is his middle name). The lawyer’s thought it was safe to let JoJo remain outside of the Witness Protection Program.
The Poor Sod was ‘Brad’, and his name wasn’t Brad. Or The Poor Sod. He’s gone, but I think you’ll agree, the general tone of our home hasn’t changed much. I’m sure I should save this for a couple of months and have a 9th anniversary party for my writing career, but, it’s a slow day, and I’m jetlagged.
The Motherlode (originally published October, 2003)
Mean what you say, keep promises and love your kids like crazy
The alarm hasn’t gone off. We are late. The bread bag is melting to the side of the toaster as my youngest son spills orange juice everywhere. The cat walks through it and runs up the stairs. My oldest son announces he needs $22 for a field trip. We have five minutes to get out the door and hide all of this from the world. Welcome to my life.
My name is Maggie Newley. I’m 39. I’ve lived in Burlington all my life. I moved back to my childhood neighbourhood seven years ago, thereby proving you can indeed go home again. I have two sons. Marc is nearly 12, or as he continually reminds me, a “preteen” who requires special care and handling. Jackson is nine and scares the life out of me daily with his daredevil prowess that I call reckless and his father calls athletic promise. My boyfriend Brad lives with us, and our two cats, Rainey and JoJo.
My children are growing and becoming more independent by the hour; people are still asking me what I want to be when I grow up. Am I fit to lead them? I believe someone invented dimmer switches so I wouldn’t have to clean my floors. I start a new fitness program every three months.
Every Monday I pledge to eat healthier, and by Tuesday I’m ordering dinner by yelling into a clown’s mouth. I am a talented seamstress who staples and tapes up hems as they loosen. On picture day, my kid is the one with ketchup on his shirt and who needs a haircut. I fill out field-trip permission slips the day of the trip, I tell myself Lunchables don’t really have too much salt in them, I wear the clothes that no one else in the family will wear, and I put the garbage out while wearing a nightie. I have never stored a number in my phone’s memory. I have never recorded anything with the VCR. I read six books at the same time and get all mixed up.
I have come to realize that I have very little control over anything. I clean my house, only to have it defiantly get grungy again. I read about people who, at my age, learn Japanese or master the stock market. I am happy to match up all the socks out of the dryer and feel accomplished when I put the clocks ahead and back at the right time every year.
I believe in rewarding the small triumphs, so I can give, and get, more rewards.
I have had a variety of jobs over the years, and not one of them has given me the same satisfaction as my kids’ telling me they love me, the plants I buy flourishing or a car with a full tank of gas. Writing about my life, for some strange reason, seems to be the right career move.
I saw a young couple desperately turning the self-help section upside down at Chapters recently. They were whisper-yelling, trying to find a parenting book for some dire problem. I shook my head at them in a knowing, smug way, and pondered how to approach them to save them a boatload of money. There are only two words you need in your arsenal as a parent: fear and guilt. If my kids are doing something bad in front of me, they’d better be scared. If they are doing it behind my back, they had better feel guilty.
I’ve discovered that the big secret to raising kids is that there is no secret. What works for one kid rarely works for another. I pick my battles to increase my chances of actually winning one. Mean what you say, don’t forget a promise, carry through on your threats, and love them like crazy. Maybe I could scribble that in a book and sell it to the couple at Chapters.
P.S. to reader: Our names have been changed to protect the innocent, and the not-so-innocent. But unlike some things in life, the events depicted are exactly as shown. I hope you’ll join me in this space each week, for my trek through motherhood.
I remember that first Motherlode. You had me at “I read six books at once and get all mixed up”.
Oh, dear woman, I had no idea you’d been along the whole time. Brave. Thank you.
So, this is the new blog site? Looks good. Surprised there weren’t more postings than I was expecting while I was gone.
Having a ball putting new pictures into every comment. It’s kind of a subversive thing. Most probably don’t even notice.
I LOVED reading that old Motherlode. So neat to see the evolution over the years. We’re just heading to Kelowna (thus today’s picture) to drop off the youngest daughter. We’ll be back after the long weekend. The empty nest is almost empty.
Sigh…
Inveterate nerd that I am, I’ve been clicking on all the ‘brown’ names ever since you mentioned that option, just to see if anyone’s changing up their photos.
(I do try to appear at least somewhat normal, but I just can’t seem to pull it off…)
Ack!!! Getting my personalities mixed up.
Hey Chris, you were fooling all of us. All of us;)
Welcome back, Buzz. Gues we just needed you here to stir up the angry mob….
Stop it Chris Brown. Your alter ego messes me up. (and trust me, I don’t need any help in that department.)
I like reading your old stuff, Rainey. Did I use the comma in the right place?
When did your columns get picked up by the Toronto Star? That’s when I came on board (I guess Maggie Newley had been ‘outed’ by then…). I’ve been laughing (and crying) with you ever since.
I hunted down your blog after we had to give up our newspaper subscription. Every cloud has a silver lining: hanging out here is so much more fun…
After a year of Motherlode, the Spec auto section asked me to write a column for them. That one got picked up by the syndicate within a couple of months, then by the Toronto Star Wheels section about a year later. A year after that, the Star Living section picked up Motherlode.
Maggie Newley got outed by me a year in (my headshot used to just show my hand holding my obscured face, glasses perched on my head) when I started doing speaking gigs. I explained to the Spec that I couldn’t very well stand there and say “Hi, I’m Maggie Newley” when someone from the audience would go “uhm, I went to high school with you, Lorraine”.
Glad you found us! We’re like Horton’s Whos. This obscure little colony of weirdos who exist, it’s just that nobody knows…except a talking elephant.
I love the first column. As for Horton Hears a Who, I am wondering if you would not be more appropriately placed in Green Eggs and Ham, with all the vehicles and hectic pace.
I also thing that Ari and Christopher would have eaten the green eggs and ham and you could have just done a review on the modes of transportation, would you could you……..
Hey Beth, you don’t know how close you are. Lorraine’s cooking (especially in the early days) was, eerr, suspect at times. “You smell it”, “I’m not smelling it”. “oh, fergawd’s sake, how bad could it be?”. Typical conversation – I swear.
It is not that I can’t cook, it is that I do not like to cook.
Or clean.
Or change the toilet paper roll.
Fun fact: I just slept for 12 hours. Musta needed that.
As my best friend (female) once commented, every woman needs a good wife.
Hey – I got one of those! He (yep…) makes the best bread and muffins. We’re both lousy at cleaning though. Maybe we need to get us a third wife…
That would never work: with our luck we’d end up with a housefull of wives and the place would still be a complete mess.
Not to mention that the muffins would all be gone…
Being the I-will-never-get-married-again person, I just had my fifth anniversary. He is very manly, former military member, can fix anything, does not put up with kaka from anyone, yet speaks in baby voices to the pets and actually vacuums under the stove before he shoves it back against the wall when he has to pull it out for a repair. I know he was a wife in another life. Lucky me.
Father of 3 Daughters. 18, 19 and 23. I have spent the past 5 years or so with my head down checking, every once in a while, on some kid who is, I am sure, loved by his Mother and Father. Maybe even for good reason. You have written many terrific columns over the years, and I try to make sure I read them all, but the one that sticks with me the most was about your Father, an old boyfriend, and ” go home”.
My Dad was an original, Stephen. I miss him every day.
Could have used him to shoo out a few more, now that I think about it;)
While I hope that situation won’t happen for me and my Girls, I would consider myself to have been a successful Father if they have a memory of me as loving as yours was of your Dad. I kid them about different boys whose names are mentioned, most often in passing. My youngest just started University in Kingston and I’ve now heard a young fellows name a couple of times. When I spoke to her the other day he “happened” to be in her residence room. Spoke to him. Seems like a great kid. And I’m feeling like an old lost Dad!
Wanna buy a rifle? I have one around here somewhere…
I am smiling right now. I have an image of your Dad on that Porch, but I think that my Girls and I will be fine. Life here in North Burlington tends to the funny side, anyway. Too many fields, and too many neighbors with lots of ammunition. But honest. We mean well!