Last Friday, the grade four class at Taché School threw a little party for Marie-Hélène. Since September, we’d been paying monthly visits to a group of about 20 students as part of a national program called Roots of Empathy. From the first visit, when Marie-Hélène was just a little lump, lying on a big green blanket with 24 pairs of eyes watching her suck on her soother, until her last visit, where she was a small but determined character on two feet, 20 some students saw her grow. The class and teachers enjoyed every visit. I got to show her off. But there is always a story behind-the-scene.
The class visits necessarily throw her routine off. We have it pretty down pat: Marie-Hélène wakes up at 7:00 in the morning, drinks her bottle, plays, eats a breakfast of fruit and cereal, and then goes to bed for her first nap at 9:00, during which I read and drink a cup of tea. She’ll sleep between an hour to two hours. Feed at 11, lunch, play and a little more play, and then, its a second nap at 1:00. By 3:00 Marie-Hélène is usually awake and in a good mood, and after a bottle, we go for a bike ride until Papa comes home.
Since The Baby Whisperer puts so much emphasis on routine, and since it suits us quite well, we don’t consider ourselves all that particular. If I told you that we plan our week’s supper menu in advance, you might be of the contrary opinion. But whew! I didn’t say that out loud… I think.
So back to last Friday… Leaving in the morning, I categorize the mental list of things to bring by activity: eat, sleep, play. Her visit to the class is just before 10. Marie-Hélène now rarely falls asleep in the car, so visits to the school usually mean that I spend the day in that neighborhood, plopping down diaper bags, toys and a playpen at the Palud condo and making a mess in the kitchen. If you knew how neat and tidy my mother-in-law is… She’s 72 and she’ll still get on her hands and knees to wash the floor despite osteo-arthritis. It makes me crings a little everytime I visit. She embodies the characters whose homes were described as having “floors you could eat off of” in books by Lucy Maud Montgomery. And last week, the Palud seniors were away, in Edmonton, for a wedding. Their absence only made their condo seem cleaner… like a museum set that should have been cordoned off to intruders like me.
By the time I fed Marie-Hélène lunch, it was far past noon. The trip I had made to their floor, Marie-Hélène on one arm, the diaper bad, my purse and a 500 pound playpen on the other, had been enough exercise for the week; Michelle Obama arms be darned. Once I had mixed the blueberry-apple compote with an equal amount of rice cereal, and warmed it to the exact degree Marie-Hélène likes, I realised I’d forgot the chair we usually use to keep her somewhat contained while we feed her, in the absence of her usual high chair. Sigh of sighs, it was in the car, umpteen floors down, one cold bowl of cereal later and scattered Cheerios to boot. Forget it, I thought. I’ll feed her on the balcony. If we dirty the floor… it won’t be too bad.
And it wasn’t. There was no spilled milk, no broken glass… Just a little girl who wouldn’t sit still between spoonfulls of blueberry goo. But… (And this is where I insert a note from Marie-Hélène… translated especially for you…)
Dearest of dear Grandmaman and Grandpapa…
I think my Mama might have lost her mind a little on Friday, when she let me eat lunch on your balcony. Nonetheless, I loved the view. Views are such nice things when they can be seen through such nice glass, from such perfect heights. I loved the view so much, I might have kissed that glass, with big blueberry-cereal lips… maybe even twice… And my Mama might even have forgot to clean those kisses off, just as she forgot to roll up the window in the car that she locked. (But don’t tell Papa… it’s a secret.) I miss you lots, especially your glasses!
Love and kisses,
Marie-Hélène
So you see? Messing with the routine is worse for me, than it is for Marie-Hélène.
