In her house

"Where have your curls gone?" She asks my son as he bounds into the living room.

He answers her patiently as he pulls plastic dinosaurs out of a cupboard: "Nowhere!"

My mom and I exchange a look and begin breathing through our mouths as we quietly open up window screens, airing out the hot, stuffy house my Nana has lived in for more than 50 years. Mom checks the commode tucked into a corner of the kitchen: it's full. While she pulls on disposable plastic gloves to begin the task of emptying and cleaning it, I spray air freshener around the main floor rooms. We pretend like this isn't happening.

"How are you feeling today, Nana?" I ask. Her feet and ankles are swollen, the skin, tight and shiny, strains against the fabric of her sweatpants.

"Oh, not so good," she answers, watching my youngest dump pennies out of a copper pot. "Don't let him put those in his mouth," she worries. Then, to my oldest: "Where have your curls gone?"

I pull a footstool over as my mom whisks by with the commode, headed for the bathroom upstairs. "Here, Nana, lets get your feet up."  I help her swing her feet up onto the stool, knowing it will do little good to bring the swelling down, but making the effort anyway.

As I step back she eyes my pregnant body.  "When's this one due?" she asks, as she does every week.

"2 more weeks, Nana. Almost there now."

"Oh!" She looks surprised. "You'll be having the baby here, then."

"We live here now, Nana.  We moved back.  We live over on Maitland."

"Oh. Not too far from me, then."

I smile and nod.

My aunt arrives then. "Hi, Mama, how're you feeling today?" She makes a face at me, over the smell. I shrug.  Into the kitchen she goes with bags of groceries, stocking the fridge with fresh food and throwing out anything that's gone bad.  Aedan begins pestering her for toys and donuts, following her around the kitchen.

I sit and tell Nana about how sunny it is outside, about the tulips blooming in her garden, about the new royal baby just born. She watches Colm playing on the floor, and I wonder if she's listening to me. I trail off into silence. I'm never sure what to say anymore, so instead we just watch the baby together.

Mom comes downstairs, the commode cleaner now. In the kitchen, while preparing the week's meals, she and my aunt talk quietly about Nana's doctors appointments, about news from the support worker who comes in through the weeks, about the need to get her on a waiting list for a home, soon. That last is a difficult subject, one that we're all afraid to broach with Nana.

"What's all that chit-chat in there?" Nana calls out, irritated.

"No chit-chat, Mom.  Sorry." They both come into the living room. My aunt sits down on the floor to play with my kids, while my mom picks up a hairbrush.

"Let me brush your hair for you," she says. Dutifully, wordlessly, my nana leans forward in the chair she rarely gets out of, while my mom runs the brush over Nana's still-thick, white hair.

"There," Mom says.  "You look beautiful." Nana falls back into the chair.

I look down at my kids, remembering a younger woman who used to walk with my sister and me "up East" to shop at the Sally Ann, who used to ride the bus over to our house and take us to the park. A woman who, at 17, crossed an ocean alone with two small children, to meet the family of her soldier husband, who was still stationed in England.  She loved reading, and theatre, and following the royal family. She taught me to knit.

The wall clock chimes. "I'm hungry.  Is it lunch time yet?" My aunt sighs, gets up and goes into the kitchen to get a hot lunch ready for her mother. I get the boys started on picking up their toys.  Nana eyes my belly once again.

"When's this one due?" she asks.

"Just 2 weeks to go, Nana." I smile.

"You'll have it here, then?"

"Yes, Nana. We live here now, on Maitland." I get the kids' into their shoes, my keys in hand.

"Oh. Not far from me then."

"No, Nana," I say.  "We'll come visit again next week."

I lean down to kiss her soft, wrinkled cheek. I tell her I love her, and she tells me to take care of myself and of my boys. I wonder how much longer she'll be in this house, caught in a paradox of living alone, completely dependant on her kids.

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Losing myself to Motherhood (and finding myself again)

It was never my intention to lose myself, 4 years ago, when I became a mother. With the first baby, it was easy to hold on to the little bits: lying on the couch, devouring books while he slept in my lap; bundling him into a pack and going for long hikes; writing while he played quietly at my feet. But once the first began to walk, and the second came along, I felt those little pieces of me slip away. I didn't read any more, not for myself. The second would sleep in my lap but the first would be wide awake and demanding some precious undivided attention. I couldn't go for long hikes anymore, because I could only carry one on my back, and the other had to stop and examine every rock, stick, and dog turd. And writing? I had forgotten that I once called myself a writer. I felt like I had to do everything for the toddler and the baby, like I was the only one capable. Too scared or stubborn or proud to ask for help, trying desperately to balance those babies plus a marriage plus a minimal share of the house work...I was asleep every night by 8, wedged uncomfortably between warm little bodies, trying to make myself small.

Tara was all but erased. I was desperately trying, and failing, to be "Mama", to love and embrace a role I'd never imagined myself in. I felt--still sometimes feel--like I had to love the job all of the time, and there was something wrong with me if I didn't. Like I had to produce 3 homemade, whole food meals a day, grow all of our vegetables, cloth diaper even though we had no running water, entertain and nurture my kids with arts and crafts, spend more time outside than in, limit screen time, socialize them...and then still find time for myself, for self-care, for yoga or meditation, for my friends, for basic hygiene.  I was deep in depression, holding myself to impossible standards, beating myself up and feeling like a failure. I was not sure at all who I was, who I used to be, who I was becoming.

I would disconnect on the internet, with social media, lost in blogs and other peoples' lives. I would, I still do, disconnect from my kids, my husband, myself. I guess I'm always searching for a common experience, someone else who has been through this dark place, and has left a detailed road map to lead me out. And of course that doesn't exist, not exactly, because the route is a little bit different for everyone, isn't it? My disconnecting would make things worse: I'd feel like even more of a failure for struggling where others were finding a way to balance "mother" and "self". The oldest would act out against the youngest in a last ditch effort to get some kind of attention from me. I would end up yelling, feeling guilty for yelling, spiralling deeper and deeper, further and further from myself.

And now, with a third baby imminent in our lives, I am finally trying to find myself again. Finally realizing that I'm doing no one any favours by letting my boys think I am nothing but "Mama", doing it all or not at all, often angry or sad or there only in body. I can't confidently answer the question: "who are you?" but I'm trying so hard to remember. To pick up a real book instead of endlessly refreshing my Facebook feed. To start my day writing morning pages while P gets the boys some breakfast. To blog, to write poetry, to let my mind run wild again. To let the boys see that I have other interests, and that while they are still a huge part of my world, they are not all of it, plus the sun and stars to boot. As I am about to become a mother of 3, I am also trying hard to become a whole person again, to become a priority in my own life again. To remember that I am a reader, a writer, a lover of hiking and bird watching and star gazing.

I must find myself for me, for them, and for this one not yet born.