Numb and Number

by Kathy Buckworth

As a mother of four, I like to peruse newspaper birth announcements, mostly to convince myself that having more than the requisite 1.5 children is, in fact, a smart and trendy thing to do.

While it's easy to poke fun at the precious announcements regarding "our latest team player" or die "newest merger and acquisition," my attention was drawn to one particular notice recently. Not a silly name, or blessings to the maternity nurses you'll never lay eyes on again, but this: "Mom was in labour for 17 hours." Succinctly stated in the midst of an otherwise normal birth announcement

I wondered about the thinking behind this message. Was it to indicate a long labour? A short one? Had someone won a bet? In my experience, this was a screamingly average labour time not really worth mentioning in conversation, let alone in an ad that costs by the word. I realized that the number must have had some significance to the new mom and dad — an achievement, perhaps, in their short tenure as parents. Inspired by that, I prepared the following announcement as a follow-up to my own four children, since that blissful labour period:

Not to forget 47 hours of school concerts, tap dance recitals, gymnastics displays, hockey play off games and graduation ceremonies for grades in which everyone graduates; 32 hours of worrying about late arrivals home, that rash that won't go away, itches in unmentionable spots, sending a five-year-old to school in diapers and the length of a 12-year-old's skirt; 15 hours of scrubbing potties, barf-crusted rugs, snotty faces, spit-upon shoulders, coloured-on walls and lice-laden heads.

Then there was the 23 hours of scissor utilization on fingernails, toe-nails, gum from hair, shirt tags that annoy, loose threads, construction paper animals and snowflakes; plus 16 disgusting hours of probing through soggy, cheesy knapsacks and lunch bags for essential notes, plastic containers and pizza order forms.  Four hours of "Because I'm your mother, that's why"; 102 hours of fight refereeing, "who started it?" contests, mending bruised feelings, battered egos, broken friendships and broken plastic cars; three hours of apologizing to other parents, children, teachers, grandparents, coaches and other adults in some way traumatized or abused by terror-izer toddlers; one hour of explaining why Mommy may use certain words and children may not; two minutes defending the vasectomy position.

A full 57 hours of Mary Kate & Ashley's Greatest Hits; five seconds each contemplating who is the cutest of: a) The Wiggles, b) the Zoboomafoo Boys, c) Steve or Joe on Blue's Clues, or d) the dads who inhabit indoor playgrounds; more than 2,000 hours of changing diapers, snapping up sleepers, pulling on pants, arranging the socks, pulling on T-shirts and wrestling with zippers that won't co-operate. Not enough time drinking wine, laughing with my husband and enjoying the company of adults.

The tallying up of our lives as parents starts with something called labour, ironically, as it indicates exactly what you're in for over the next 20 years. Birth announcements cover the start and death announcements the finish — we need a forum to cover the real life that happens in between.

Kathy Buckworth is the author of The Secret Life of Supermom and Supermom: A Celebration of All You Do, available at bookstores everywhere.

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