I used to be a dragon slayer. It was years ago, back when I had to shove spagetti arms into coat sleeves and chase small children into shoes so we could spend time outside.  I’d follow Fric and Frac about as I pushed Bug about in a stroller or a wagon, watching them trip over blades of grass and pull up fistful of dandelions with their chubby little hands to proudly give to me.

As my kids explored the Great Outdoors I’d weave grand tales about invisible fairy worlds, where dragon flies were the Royal transportation for magical princesses and beetles the bus for the commoners. Entire communities would live in the reeds of our slough and wild mushrooms housed irksome gnomes. I took my cues from the nature around us and I spun stories so fine that Charlotte’s Web looked like the ratty tapestry of a blind person learning to knit.

My kids would spend hours hanging on my every word, entranced with the fiction I concocted for them and I soaked up their joy like a sponge does a spill. I knew my time as their dream weaver and dragon slayer was fleeting, for soon they would find their own dreams to weave, their own dragons to slay. They would be pulling on the reigns of freedom to find their own and create a world I would never fully see.

Eventually, the day finally came when my children clumsily stomped out of my fairy world and into their own; preferring to create their own fiction with their friends rather than be enchanted with mine.

I miss those days. I miss being their invincible dragon slayer.

Those were the days my kids were innocent and untouched by the grim realities of life. Before they understood disabilities and disappointments; before they met Death and felt his presence in their young lives so vividly.

I wish desperately, I could bundle up Fric and Frac and now Jumby too, and wrap them in the innocence of the fairy tales I spin to keep them safe and warm and away from the harsh embrace of Life.

Death dissolved any traces of pixie dust my children had. I’ve fought hard over the past four years to reintroduce the magic of life to my children, to show them that life goes on and wonder continues. But it hasn’t been easy. I can’t erase the past and give them back their childhood innocence, no matter how silly I am, or how many times I make them laugh.

But I try.

There isn’t a day that goes by in which I don’t question myself and wonder if I’m failing them.

I couldn’t protect Fric or Frac or Bug four years ago, nor can I erase the pain Jumby experienced at the hands of a violent man. All I can do is love them and try to give them the tools they will need to flourish in this new life we have all found ourselves in while promising to protect them forever.

Two weeks ago, that promise wasn’t enough. Life once again banged on my family’s door and took yet another sliver of innocence away from my children.

A stranger altered the landscape of our family once again.

There is nothing I can do to erase this pain my child now harbours, nothing I can do to wipe this foul memory from existence.

It’s a terrible feeling to watch your child suffer and to wrestle with the what-if’s. What if I didn’t leave this child alone? What if I had my cell phone on? What if Boo was home?

I failed my child, if only by not preventing this tragedy. I failed to protect my child.

For two weeks I have now seethed and raged at the world, angry my child has to bear yet more scars from a childhood trauma. A trauma which should never have happened from a man who should have known better.

Once again, I feel helpless, wandering around this vast wilderness of parenthood and wondering how I can put the pieces of my child together again.

I am tired of tragedy bleeding onto the pages of my family’s history and I’m scared to turn the page to find that I have yet another dragon to slay. My armour is threadbare and falling off these days and my vulnerability is exposed, an open invitation for the next monster to bite into.

So I continue to do what I have done for the last four years. I wrap myself around my children and whisper stories of courage and strength into their ears and hold them tight when the monsters invade their dreams at night.

I can’t undo dead brothers or battered babies or grown up atrocities, but I can love them. I set the example of rising above, meeting the challenge, while shining a light on the scary things that threaten to undo us all.

My arm is tired from waving around this heavy sword while battling life’s injustices on their behalf and I worry I will falter and once more fail my children. I fear my children will see through my facade and see me for who I really am: Just a woman who loves her kids, not the dragon slayer I tell them I am.

My husband left me.

For a man.

Well okay, he left for a job and he’s staying with a friend, but it makes for a much more dramatic impact when I say he left me for a man. The truth of the matter is he was home for three weeks and it was time for him to get back to work. Before I killed him.

Not that I don’t love the man dearly, but ever since he started working out of town almost four years ago, I’ve become accustomed to being the top dog of the parental duo. With him home, it throws everything out of balance, with the kids being the manipulative smart little banshees they are, as they try and play one parent against the other.

For the most part, Boo and I transition after a day or two and revert back to the dynamic parenting duo we once were before he left the home for bigger paychecks, a second apartment and all the free time with small town strippers (me, not him) a person can handle.

But there are moments; moments when I’m supposed to keep my mouth shut and just support him like the parenting manuals all dictate good united parents should do; when I want to kill. Kill him and set my children loose in the wild.

One might say I parent a little differently than my children’s father does. I insist I do this out of survival. The man leaves me alone with his offspring and expects to come back home to see them happy, healthy and well adjusted. He has entrusted me with this task because he is bat shit crazy. However, while he’s busy earning the dough that pays for our bread and butter, he misses out on all the joyous moments of raising a handicapped boy who likes to dump the dog’s water dish on the floor or unplug his sibling’s gaming unit (generally during a particularly important moment in the game my children like to whine) as well as missing out on all the glorious gory moments of rearing two teens into adult hood.

He can’t understand why I insist he bring home liquor every time he walks in the door.

He has yet to learn it’s because I can’t drown my single parenting sorrows while he’s gone but I damn well can fuzz things up while he’s home.

Not that I’m a liquor hound. Really. The empty boxes of wine in the pantry prove NOTHING.

*Editor’s note for child welfare workers who may be reading this: it’s called artistic license not an admission of guilt.*

My husband has this misguided notion that I’m in charge in his absence. What he doesn’t realize is while yes, I am the one twirling my pom poms at the front of our very own freak parade, I only pretend to be in charge. It’s a charade. I know it. My children suspect it. My husband refuses to know it. Something about me being the grown adult around here.

My life with out Boo for back up consists of arguing siblings, slammed doors, heads filled with eye rolling and mouths that like to sass back. I counter balance this with empty threats, phone calls to their father and locking them outside while I point and laugh from the other side of the window.

It’s called survival of the fittest. Ask Darwin, he’ll explain it.

For the most part, my kids are good kids. (Even if I did go on national television and call them demons.) They are respectful, they keep up with their studies without me prodding them and they bring home straight A’s every report card. They are fairly self sufficient in fact, ever since I taught them that one can survive on bologna, boxed macaroni and a jug of milk. It’s like they don’t even need parents half the time since they are such responsible little cretins children.

But every now and then the hormones rear their ugly little heads and my children disappear only to be reincarnated as, well, demons. My husband doesn’t get this. And it makes for a bumpy road when he’s along for the ride.

Which gives me a head ache. (And not just from the cheap wine I guzzled when he wasn’t looking.)*

*That’d be artistic license again, dear social workers.

My husband’s solution for the banshee screaming siblings is to punish them with slave labour for every misdeed they do. My solution for the screaming festival my children occasionally like to partake in is to separate, sort, and then hug it out. Which is not always successful now that my kids are getting older and more stubborn as they age. They want to be right damn it, they don’t want to see the other side of the coin.

Slave labour tends to be the quickest and quietest resolution while he’s home but then he LEAVES. And I’m once again saddled with the single parenting yoke and two teens and a little boy who all prey on my sanity like the hunter hunts a moose.

There is one other looming factor that makes my life miserable once my husband takes off for greener childless pastures. (Well, two looming factors but that’s why God invented sex toys.)

I don’t know if it’s because my children don’t see my husband every day or listen to him harp on them continuously like I seem to, but he is much more effective at intimidating them into good behaviour. I can say the exact same words, in the exact same tone, and dole out the exact same punishment and the impact is almost neglible as to when my husband does it.

Is it his size? The deep husky voice of his? It can’t be his whiskers, cuz damn yo, I’m growing a few of my own. All I know, is that for two days after his father leaves it is like a free for all and I’m running for cover while the inmates run the aslyum. Every damn time.

So my husband is the hard ass while he’s home and I hand over the role of Bad Cop to him while donning the goofy good cop badge, knowing that once he leaves I’ll have to slap the Bad Cop hat on and pray my children take me seriously. While hoping I can keep a straight face and not get distracted by clever wise cracks.  Which I may or may not have a habit of doing. I admit nothing.

Last night after kisses were kissed, hugs were hugged and we all stood on the deck waving good bye to Boo as his tail lights disappeared down our driveway, my children started up with one another, AGAIN.

I, being the weary down trodden mother I am, threatened, cajolled and bartered. I enlisted every parenting technique I knew to whip my kids back into performing monkeys shape but it was hopeless. I ended up losing it and yelling at the older two kids while Jumby took cover under the pillows on the floor.

I hate yelling. It’s ineffective and stupid. It’s sinking to their level and what am I demonstrating to them when I yell at them to be quiet when they are yelling? But it’s like Fric and Frac just kept jumping on my one last frazzled nerve until I snapped and morphed into a rabid screaming badger.

Which ultimately, while bring a nano second of stunned silence, solved nothing. And the kids resumed bickering as though I wasn’t even in the room.

Hi, my name is Tanis and I ran out of parenting tools last night. Heck I even considered beating them but since they are just shy of seeing me nose to nose and both children are fitter than I am, I figured if I did that I was just asking for my own ass to be kicked.

In the end, after a Mommy Time Out to revert back to the adult I’m supposed to be, I dished out punishment like a grandma dishes out icecream. Essays were assigned, television privileges revoked and threats of making them pay me a monetary fine for every eye roll and sassy remark made was promised.

But as I was parenting, I was overcome with an out of body sensation. I realized, mid-sentence as I was shaking my finger and pasting the “I’m so disappointed in you” look on my face, my children just looked at me like I had horns sprouting out of my head and they offered to call their father for me.

So I could ‘calm down.’

It was right then I seriously considered jumping in my vehicle, chasing my husband down and sending him home so I could take his place in the work field. Because I’ve obviously lost my damn mind thinking I can survive parenting and actually produce well adjusted productive members of the next generation.

Seems to me the only thing I’m producing is the hot air I keep blowing at them lately.

My palms are blistered and raw from trying to keep the reigns of parental control firmly in hand.

If only my kids could be as good as I was growing up. My mom doesn’t know how lucky she had it with us.

Heh.

So. Got any suggestions? Parental tips? Humorous anecdotes which impart a glimmer of wisdom? Horror stories you’d care to share? Effective discipline tools for teens that won’t land my ass in the clink? I’m outnumbered here. It’s two against one, with the littlest dude cheering on his siblings. Little traitor.

Help a mother out would ya?

My husband told me all about you. How you showed up in his life, unannounced and with little fan fare, shortly after our son died. You knew nothing about my husband, about us, yet you clicked with him in a forever way. The two of you became inseparable and I only found it mildly annoying at first.

You were my husband’s first man-crush.

I’d tease him that he was trading me in for a manlier model and Boo would get indignant and huffy and say, “That’s not funny, Tanis.”

(It kinda was. I enjoy ruffling your feathers dear husband. You ought to know that by now.)

You showed up on my doorstep on a hot sunny afternoon, with a smile and a six pack of beer. You weren’t what I was expecting to meet. I knew you were tall and blonde and funny but I didn’t expect to find kindness in your eyes or such intellect hidden underneath that that baseball cap you always insist on wearing.

You became my friend too, over that hot summer, and you wound yourself deep into the heart of our family at a time when we were still hurting, still fragile. You made life seem a little brighter with every lame joke you told, every smile you bestowed upon my children.

You became, and still are, the other man in my life. My husband’s best friend and one of my own.

This Friday, you will be across the country receiving an award I know you would rather not accept.

I know you don’t think you did anything heroic. I know you flagellate yourself every time you think of that fateful day. I’ve seen the pain in your eyes and the sorrow on your face as you wonder if you could have done anything different, anything to change the outcome of that long ago afternoon.

My husband was witness to it all and his voice shakes with pain and admiration when he retells the story of your actions. How you unflinchingly pushed past security and lowered yourself into a boiler where two men were trapped with no way of escaping the heat of over 140 degrees Fahrenheit.

They were boiling to death in their own skins and no one was around to help them.

Except you.

You risked your life to try and save theirs. You broke every rule and safety guideline that was established to heed the desperate calls of two men who were dying a horrible heated death. You lowered yourself into that boiler, that cauldron of heat, and helped get those men to safety.

You held that man’s lifeless body in your own as you pulled him out of the heat and whispered to him over and over again that it would be okay. You stayed by his side until the paramedics arrived to take the two men to the hospital in a desperate bid to save them.

You wept with frustration and anguish knowing you couldn’t have done more, that for every second you took to reach them was one more second of torture for those men.

You were wrecked with grief when you learned one of the men did not make it, and the other man is permanently damaged from the heat.

You have held yourself accountable personally, for a work accident that had nothing to do with you, for a tragic outcome that would have been worse if it was not for your quick unflinching actions that afternoon.

You reject the title ‘hero’ because you can’t escape the image of that man’s face as you held him in his arms, you can’t forget the feeling of his heated skin in your arms. You can’t forget the image of his wife and loved ones as they surrounded his casket.

But heroes don’t wear spandex or drive Batmobiles.

Heroes are everyday people who put others before themselves. Heroes are people who try and help with little thought or regards to their personal benefit or even safety.

Heroes come in all sorts of shapes and sizes. I’ve been blessed to meet several in my life and I’m here to tell you they don’t look like they do in the movies. Just look at the little kid in the cancer ward, inspiring adults and children to live better, to do better with every second of their sick life. Look at the mother who puts her child before herself, or the father who would move mountains to protect his family.

Heroes aren’t always doctors or police or fire fighters.

Heroes are everyday people, like you my friend, who take the time to reach out to help someone with out thinking about how they themselves will benefit.

Your bravery (and stupidity…yes what you did was stupid, but I’ll forgive it,) amazed me that fateful day.

Your courage to stand up for further safety checks and change the system to ensure no person would ever have to suffer such a fate again on a job site, inspires and reminds me that no matter how up hill the battle seems, it can always be won.

You don’t see the ripple waves your actions have produced; you can’t see past the horror of that moment. But your coworkers see, my children see, your own son sees. They see the example you have set with your actions and they know. They know a hero when they see one.

The Governor General of Canada is going to ensure that the entire country knows what you did was heart breakingly difficult when she pins the Medal of Bravery on your chest this Friday.

Boo and I can’t be there in person, but we will both be by your side in spirit, waiting for your arrival back home, where we will lift our beer bottles and toast the fact we were lucky enough to find you and smart enough to keep you around.

You are a hero Mack. You are our hero.

And every time I think of you, my friend, I’m going to hear the theme song to Hercules play in my head.

Maybe, with a few beer and some luck, I’ll be able to convince you to wear Herc’s toga for me.

Congratulations Mack. Boo and I are so damn proud of you.

*To any Albertan ladies reading this, why yes, Mack is single. And I can personally vouch for him. Wink, wink.*

*And why yes, Mack, I did have to post that yummy picture of you up above. I consider it my duty as a woman to share the eye candy.*