Daniela Ginta, Freelance Writer

Gratitude makes the journey better. Kindness, too.

Tag: parenting

Of Boys. Mine

By

On May 3, 2012

I walk through today’s spring and my mind curls around thoughts of my boys. I need shelter.

Today is a day when I have to remind myself of the magic of boys. You see, everyday life with my boys is like squeezing handfuls of stars.

There’s sparkles all over, there’s laughter and screams and there’s fighting. Manners begone, some days cannot carry such load, it’s like walking on a tight rope with a basket of apples on your head.

Could you, would you?

Boys don’t.

The know-it-all ones call it high energy. Whatever. Piling in thick fat heaps is this desire to give them what I think matters most.The courage to be real and speak their words, the courage to live their truth. How is that done?

I want them tall and strong, yet humble and loving. I want them to be quiet when tears are being cried, to listen.

I want them to open their arms and understand. I want them to ask for what’s theirs and know how to draw that line in the sand that will keep them baddies away. I want them to trust and be bold. I want them to love loneliness as much as they love people.

“Mom, can someone walk through fire and come out unburned?”… No, fire burns.

No, wait, you can. People do it. How do they?

I want my boys to be self-sufficient, I want them to know to say “enough” and “no.”

I look back at all the times I gave them the anti-meaning of both. Guilt seeps through the cracks of my heart. When and how does one learn to be a parent?

We parent ourselves through the birth of our children. We become children with them once again while wearing big people shoes. Noisy, clumsy. Sometimes we need hugs and reassurance as much as they do.

No one can know more about the child cradled in your arms than you do. Your child. Yet inadequacy takes over ever so often.

What children do or don’t do does not align with what’s expected of them. Then what?

When do we start pushing them towards the barren of places of “you must fit the mold” afraid they’ll lose the start? Is it fair to push them if the time is not right yet? Not ripe yet…

I’m ready to fight this one. Raw instincts fight back. When do we tell them to let go of themselves so they float like the rest of them? Why? Swim with your head in the water so you’ll go the distance. Don’t look up or to the side, you might see things, you’ll fall behind. You can’t. I won’t say it.

Lagging when there’s no room for laggers is a serious offense they say. Head in the water, catch up, no more playing games and wondering at things.

Still, I won’t say it. Should kids be allowed to lag and look at all things wondrous and magic? It is in the eyes of the beholder, you’ll say. That’s exactly the point. How are we to know what touches one’s heart and makes the mind expand.

Here’s to them not getting lost along the way. Lost from themselves, from magic, from being boys.

Here’s to them knowing when they’re ready to jump and having the courage to do so.

Here’s to them knowing when they cannot turn around and walk away, here’s to them knowing when they should walk away. To them knowing they have choices.

Here’s to me being there for them. And here’s to them knowing that. “Mom, can we play that game where I’m trying to get away and you try to stop me? No, not like that. Yeah, like that… Now you have to let go…” Trust. Knowing when they’re ready. Knowing they will be.

The secret, our secret, as I came to realize is that when my boys fill the air with laughter and tumbles their voices sound clearer.

I can hear them loud and clear when I laugh and tumble with them. Even when they whisper. I whisper back. They hear me.

My boys. Never lost. Just boys.

The Kind Of Snake I’d Like to Be When I’m Not a Mammoth

By

On October 6, 2011

In Armchair Mayor Column

It’s after school. We’re driving to the big library downtown. In the back, the boys are reading (Tony) and munching on the rest of his lunch sandwich (Sasha). It is one of those picture perfect end-of-September afternoons. The air is still crisp yet at this hour one could say that it was softened into submission by the sun.

We park by the big round building with the appearance of a coliseum that has “Please come in” written all over it. If you haven’t seen this landmark building in Vancouver (and if of course you’re not on the other side of the planet at the moment, not that that would be necessarily be a hindrance, stranger things have happened) you have to make your way there. It’s a good place to be.

There is a piazza, you see, covered and abounding with coffee shops and eateries, and not the fast, pack-an-artery/have-a-sugar-crash-shortly type. People are reading, staring, eating, chillin’… We walk in and go straight to the kids’ section. Sasha’s interest these days revolves around reptiles and prehistoric life. Tony wanders and finds treasures to feed his newly discovered Harry Potter passion.

We then go on an escalator joyride (is where you go up and down just because and then you do it again, despite people staring at you). A by-passer throws me a “You know that can get you all nauseous?”. Nah, I shrug, thinking he should’ve seen the Budapest subway escalator plunging all the way to the centre of the Earth and back up again.

An armful of books later we wade through the river of people and drive back across the bridge to the laid-back life on the other side. Traffic wraps around us like caramel. The boys look through an oversized book of snakes they got from the library.
“If you were a snake what kind of snake would you be, Mom?” There’s not an ounce of jest in Sasha’s voice. He means it. Well, a yellow one, I say. “I’d be a black and red one,” he says. Tony picks black, red, yellow and blue. We talk about camouflage and poisonous snakes. They’re good with being poisonous as snakes. I settle for a mellow corn snake. I think of snakes driving a car and the idea slithers into my head for a future project, pun intended, of course.

“Can we stop at the beach?” Can’t pass by the beach without stopping, and today’s dry sand and sunny skies make it an obligation. We go to the beach. We eat dates and play Cro-Magnon. I’m a mammoth. Tony’s a saber-tooth tiger but he takes too long to succumb to the hands of Cro-Magnon Sasha and the little Cro-Magnon has a fit.

There’s fighting, laughing and crying hanging like little bats onto the boys, there’s tears and screaming, and then, there’s me. Just sitting in the golden-glowing sand of Jericho beach at dusk and thinking that hungry kids and Cro-Magnon games just don’t mix well. We head home to have dinner and bedtime finds us reading more about… well, Cro-Magnons. We look through the snake book because there is this black snake I am told I have to see. Tomorrow I’ll look for the yellow one.

Later on after bedtime hugs and kisses Tony whispers “You’re so precious, Mom.” I am ready to say “Oh, no, you see, I am not perfect…” but I bite my tongue. He did not say that I am perfect, he really did not mean it that way. The way I see it, perfect means fault-free. Well, I’m far from that.

Precious means real and it means loved. Faults and all. I hug him tight and then my teary eyes and I tippy toe out the door. The house is quiet and dark. It’s my quiet writing time, so I make tea and write and I can almost hear my heart sigh a sleepy happy sigh as it cuddles up with two sleepy boys. If I were to paint it using just one color, I would not use perfect but precious. Just like sunlight, the latter has the whole spectrum.

Wednesday Mornings, Itty Bitty Spiders and Random Hugs

By

On May 19, 2011

In Life Stories, Motherhood

I am walking home with Sasha from Tony’s school. It is 9am and the morning is a big sparkling diamond. “Let’s walk home this way, Mom.” Sasha points to a street with a tree that looks like a red shredded umbrella with pink flowers all over. He loves that tree. He loves flowers and leaves and twigs. Every day I get them as gifts.

When we don’t have to hurry Sasha discovers an entire world of wonders. We walk up the street, pass the red umbrella tree and stop in front of a carpet of big leaves. They have dew on them, perfect little clear spheres of liquid life. Sasha is mesmerized by them, and I am mesmerized by him. I wish he’ll never lose that sense of wonder. He doesn’t touch the dew, too precious.

A few seconds later he makes the cutest little sound while crouching to see something under a leaf. “Mom, this is the tiniest I’ve ever seen.” It most likely is. A spider. So very small. Yet still, it has its own web. So delicate. Sasha’s eyes are big and round and happy. No gift in the world can replace this.

Time to wonder. Time to be silent and happy. Time to have Mom and that diamond of a morning all to himself.

His little hand slips into mine and we walk uphill. We talk about spider webs and questions are bubbling up so quick he’s almost short of breath. I pick him up. His arms wrap around my neck and his head rests on my shoulder. A big smile inundates his face. “You just picked me up randomly, Mom, I love that.” He’s learned quite a few big words from books and stories on tape lately, randomly is one of them.
There is nothing in the world to replace this. Time to hug my growing baby. Time to feel his head on my shoulder and his breath on my neck like the warm flutter of an invisible butterfly. A random butterfly hug that fills my eyes with tiny spheres of liquid happiness.
The sun envies the warmth of our hug. I would too.

Page 14 of 14

Previous

Powered by WordPress & Theme by Anders Norén