“Would you be interested in reviewing the BRIO Little Forest Train Set?” asked the folks over at Baby Direct, to which I responded, “But of course.”

It has to be said: Brio rocks!  What’s not to like about a toy manufacturer that has its own Declaration of Independence which states:

There are those who say that you can’t eat out once you have children.
That you’ll never have time to read.
That you can’t travel.
That you’ll never dance on the tables again.
There are those who say that you’ll never wear white.
That you’ll put on a track suit every morning and never buy another pair of stilettos.
There are those who say that the future looks bleak.
We beg to disagree.
We know that it isn’t always easy to juggle family life with work, friends, ball games, shopping and everything else you want to do. But at BRIO, our goal is to make that life easier, fun-filled and joyful.

Any company that says it will assist me in my quest to dance on a table again has my vote.  Oh, that time at B.B. King’s Blues Club, listening to and watching the man himself with a belly full of fried pickles and too much wine.  Ahem, I digress…

This train set represents everything that is great about BRIO and about many of the toys which are conceived and/or manufactured in Scandinavian countries.  Contrary to Bergman films created in the same region, the toys are uncomplicated.  Similar to his films, they are beautiful and require imagination.

Complete with 18 pieces, this starter train set is not overwhelming.  It’s just enough to, well, get started.  Very little effort is required to latch track pieces to one another to make an oval track.  I showed my nearly-three-year-old the photo of the oval track on the box, and he was able to replicate it with ease.  Assembling a figure eight track with bridges, tunnels and ramps is too complicated for my little guy now, but the beauty of this train set is that additional track pieces can be added later.

And the fact that this set is made of sustainable beechwood is appealing.  Wooden toys are generally more durable, and if you’ve seen how my son amuses himself with his playthings, you would know that durability is essential.  More importantly, wooden toys can be a lot safer for children, considering many plastic toys contain toxic substances known to cause damage to the lungs, kidneys, liver and reproductive system, as well as cause perilous hormone changes in children.

Among the non-track pieces are a train, a carriage with three removable logs under an elastic band, and two trees.  The variations with these pieces are endless.  My son took the logs out and pretended they were three people at one point.  He put the trees, dinosaurs, animals, and superheroes on the carriage.  At a later stage, my train was chasing his carriage, and his carriage somehow began to fly off the track and into another room.

This toy leaves room to make believe, to invent, to create, unlike so many things today (read: people disclosing their constant whereabouts on Facebook, reality shows, and the clothing of certain entertainers).  My son has a very active imagination, and I would like it to stay this way for as long as possible.  This train is one small step in making this happen.

The BRIO Little Forest Train Set is available from Baby Direct.

Artwork by Tony Aquino

“Go ahead, share with her, pumpkin,” I told my son as he held his ball while staring at the little girl approaching him, eyeing the ball.  He threw it to her and so began a game of catch between them.  When she left, another tiny tot barely able to walk came along for his turn of tossing the ball back and forth.  As they played, two other kiddos watched, ogling the ball. 

What is it about a ball that seems to connect children, and by extension, their respective parents?  I’ve seen these spheres of magic lead to parental introductions at playgrounds and parks, and they seem to bring together entire countries as witnessed during the recent World Cup matches.  These roundies also seem to serve as peace offerings and aid in reconstruction efforts, through organisations like Operation Soccer Ball and Kick for Nick.

Could the explanation be found in the fact that the sphere and its cousin the circle are considered symbols of unity?  Are there sphere conspirators working behind the scenes to assist in our bonding efforts?  Are all the balls at Toys R Us and Lillywhites singing a chorus of “come together right now over me” when the doors close and the lights go down?

My own brother’s ball games – baseball, football, and basketball – brought our family together, with a slew of relatives coming to the games to cheer him on.  So maybe there was food to entice our attendance – one aunt infamously brought a bag of goodies to each game – and he may have had an attractive teammate or two, but I’m convinced it was the inner-workings of the balls themselves that made us all want to support him. 

My husband’s, son’s and my “ball time” not only gave us family fusing time, but made all of us laugh.  In his room, my son would empty his basket of about twenty balls ranging in size from gumball machine balls to a beach ball.  While I stayed in his room with him to help him pick up the balls and throw them at my husband who stood just outside the doorway, my son would be giggling so much he could barely throw.  Meanwhile, my chuckling ball and chain (get it?) wished he had full-body armour, wondering how he ended up on the receiving end of two future dodge ball champions. 

And let us not forget balls’ cousins, bubbles?  Not until I became a mama did I realise the enchantment of these air in liquid globules.  I’ve seen a two-month-old smile for the first time after setting her eyes on a cluster of bubbles, a six-month-old crawl his inaugural crawl to catch a bubble, and an 18-month-old hyperventilate after catching a glimpse of bubbles.  Even a fellow mom friend of mine goes stir crazy for bubbles – both the fly-in-the-air spheres and the variety from a certain region in France.  I was once blowing bubbles for our precious offspring, and when the munchkins became preoccupied with the next best thing, my friend asked me to keep blowing bubbles because she loved being surrounded by them.  Okey dokey, bubble fetish pal, by all means I’ll keep blowing mini globes of happiness.

Just as disco balls unite Tony Manero wannabes, and circle time unites singing tykes, my own hula hoop endeavours once united neighbours and an ice cream man.  I had a fuchsia hula hoop when I was a child, and I twirled that thing around my waist, neck, wrists and ankles for hours.  I’d invite the neighbours to watch the spectacular hula hoopaganza, and they’d clap with utter amazement at the end of each act.  Sometimes the ice cream man would drive by during the performance and give me a standing ovation, and on one occasion, a free strawberry shortcake ice cream.

Ladies and gentlemen of the world, I’m convinced it’s no coincidence that Cheerios, donuts, bagels, pizzas, pies and cookies are round.  My college roommates and I bonded over pizzas and cookies countless times.  And while I’ve never tasted square donuts or rectangular bagels, I already know that – beyond taste – something would feel disjointed.

Whether a spheres’ and circles’ ability to bring human beings together is something to do with the Sun, Moon, planets or ticking clocks, I don’t know.  And while I’m aware that food, technology and tragedy have their own ways of unifying folks, balls and bubbles seem to have their own ways of connecting the little darlings.  So parents, let’s play ball!

Warning: What you are about to read may contain offensive, albeit honest, content. 

I’ve seen it all over the last three years:  turquoise and black what-looked-to-be-satin bikinis, a strawberry and banana patterned pair which had seen better days (the strawberries were pink, not red), purple G-strings, black mesh thongs, and your good ol’ white cotton variety.

I don’t work at Agent Provocateur or Maidenform.  I am a mom who takes her little one to playgroups and the park, and these panties are what I have observed on fellow moms while seated in a circle during song time or pushing my son on the swings.

Hopscotching with her two little munchkins was one mom wearing a pair of hipster jeans and Calvin Klein undies – the two-inch waistband with the brand name in a colossal font was the giveaway.  I wondered whether this mom might in fact be a brand ambassador.  Calvin Klein does have some clever marketing folks, you know.  Remember the Kate Moss and Marky Mark ads that shot sales through the roof?

I’m not offended by the amount of moms’ balbriggans on show, I simply find it curious.  I am embarking on my own investigation to find out why, if a mom knows she will be sitting on a teeter totter, bending over to pick up Lego pieces, or kneeling while waving a colourful parachute up and down, i.e. situations in which she will be vulnerable to knickers transparency, would she decide to wear low-slung anything?

I ask my trustee friend, a mom and Victoria’s Secret devotee, why she thinks fellow moms engage in such activity, and she says they’re not engaging in anything; they’re just being moms and probably don’t even realise their lingerie is on show.  She says moms have to bend over to change diapers/nappies, they have to bend over to pick babies up out of their strollers/buggies, and they find themselves crawling under bridges and through tunnels at playgroups.  My insightful pal adds that non-moms’ skivvies show too, but perhaps it’s less noticeable since they don’t often find themselves on the floor playing with tiny tots or climbing ladder rungs to go down the slide.

I ask another friend – the one who would be the first to buy stock in La Perla if they went public – what she thinks of this visible panties business, and she immediately gets her knickers in a twist (pun intended).  “Just because you become a mom doesn’t mean all your sexy lingerie should be thrown out the window.”  I ask her if she thinks that undies with giraffes and zebras – some of them headless or limbless because the seam cut them off – on them are sexy and then tell her that she’s missing the point.  I’m not saying that racy underclothes should be forgotten once a child enters the scene, but rather I’m asking whether moms need to bear witness to their fellow moms’ undergarments.

I ask a third chum, and alas, I feel as though she gets it.  She laughs, saying, “Oh, you mean the VPs”.  “Yes!” I shout.  She’s not referring to US VP Joe Biden or former Vice President Al Gore who seems to be in the headlines of late for all the wrong reasons, but rather Visible Panties, a shortened form of the urban acronym VPL (Visible Panty Line).  I tell her that in my ongoing investigation, I intend to interview a postpartum psychologist and ask if there’s a syndrome of which I’m unaware, an I Am Mom, Hear Me Roar By Showing My Nether Garments condition.

I wouldn’t be able to conduct a full investigation without including an examination of the moms who suffer from momnesia, forgetting to wear undies; the mothers who haven’t had a moment to do laundry, have no clean knickers and thus decide to go sans knickers; or those mommies who have decided to abandon them altogether.  I know my own mom burned her bras in the Sixties.  Could some of my fellow mums be burning their panties in protest of something in the new millennium?  Whatever the case, I still intend to teach my son to use his imagination even in situations when no imagination is required.

If you catch a glimpse of my Wonder Woman or Supergirl Underoos under my jeans as I bend over to pick up one of my son’s toys, please know that I’m aware that I’m too old to be wearing these particular undergarments, but it’s my own way of telling my maternal comrades that we are in possession of super powers, those of a mom.

My dad and son in front of:
Doug Wheeler
RM 669, 1969
The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles

When I was seven, my dad was my light.  My parents divorced, and he and I ended up living in a small apartment.  Our meals alternated between the scrumptious fare on offer at Wienerschnitzel and Winchell’s and while eating chili dogs and chocolate donuts with rainbow sprinkles, we’d listen to Tom Petty, Bob Dylan and Minnie Riperton.    

My dad had a way of knowing how to lift my spirits then, just as he does today, and this often involves an element of art.  While we lived in the aforementioned apartment, my dad enrolled in an art class at a community college.  He came home on one occasion with a sketchbook, and I couldn’t wait to peer inside.  For what seemed like hours, I looked at anatomical drawings comparable to da Vinci’s.  And when he asked me to be his hand, foot, or ear model, I was honoured.  On a separate occasion, he brought home a stack of magazines and asked me to tear out pages of faces I liked.  I handed him my selection and was a privileged eyewitness to my dad’s uncanny awareness of the special relationship between charcoal and white paper.    

A year later, I was required to try my own hand at sketching a countenance.  One of my elementary school teachers instructed us to choose one American president to draw, and I chose one James K. Polk.  I asked my dad how to approach this project, and he asked if I had a rendering of Mr. Polk.  I gave him the rendering; he took one look at it, grabbed my paper, and proceeded to draw a perfect semblance in all of 12 seconds.  I momentarily contemplated handing in this work of genius.  Ditto for the heart chambers and ear canal he helped me sketch.    

And my dad wasn’t a genius with only two-dimensional works.  In school, I also had to create a three-dimensional volcano and later, one of the California Missions.  My dad was not content to make a simple volcano; my volcano spewed coquelicot and aureolin lava.  And, my Mission came complete with padres, cattle and burros.     

While I was in college, I had to produce a comprehensive colour chart with about 1,000 different values.  I opted to create this hue monster in my dad’s home as opposed to the studio or dorm, as I thought the mere presence of Papa Shade Maestro would positively affect my efforts.    

Even today, just having my dad here provides a certainty in my endeavours, artistic and otherwise.  He is the most prolific artist, and he doesn’t just create works; he is one of the few artists I know who formulates the media he uses to create the works.  Somehow, when I look at him and his catalogue of masterpieces, I can hear Minnie Riperton singing, “The reasons for my life are buried in deep places…”, and I feel safe.    

In honour of my dad, the artist, I wish to share with you a selection of artworks created by fathers, depicting fathers, or inspired by fathers.  The media – including candies, letters from a father, and latex – are intriguing, as is the choice to depict the father.  

Louise Bourgeois
The Destruction of the Father, 1974
Cheim & Read, Galerie Karsten Greve, and Galerie Hauser & Wirth

Rembrandt van Rijn
Artist’s Father, 1630

Felix Gonzalez –Torres
Untitled (Portrait of Dad), 1991
Collection of Carlos and Rosa de la Cruz, Courtesy of the Felix Gonzalez-Torres Foundation, Andrea Rosen Gallery, New York

Dave McKean
Father and Son, 2003

David Douglas Duncan
Picasso's children Paloma and Claude skipped rope with their father inside Villa La Californie, 1957

Gerhard Richter
Betty, 1988
Saint Louis Art Museum, Saint Louis

Father and Child by Car, early 20th century
Photos of West Central Minnesota Farm Life

O Zhang
Daddy & I: No 29, 2006
CRG Gallery, New York

Kelli Scott Kelley
Father, 2001
©Kelli Scott Kelley

John Mayson
One from the Imagines (a mask of heritage) series, 2009

It never occurred to me to not display my son’s masterpieces – and I wholeheartedly believe they are masterpieces – on our walls.  Whenever he creates a new one, I ask him if I can hang it on the wall, and he says, “Tac, tac, tac!”  This is because I tell him I need him to help me pull pieces of White Tac to put on the back of the masterpieces in order to make them stick to the wall.

We are currently visiting family for an extended period of time, and the first things I thought to pack – before clothes, Calpol, blankie, and favourite books and toys – were the masterpieces.  I’m not sure if it was more for me or for him, but I immediately fixed the masterpieces on the walls in my parents’ home.  And when my little guy’s cousins came over, he was so happy to share these drawings, paintings, collages, and sticker, cotton wool, stamp and leaf creations with them.  He introduced each work of genius, excitedly stumbling over his words while describing the contents.  He was so proud, and I was stolzgeschwellt watching and listening to him.

I’m aware that exposure to and creation of art can play a significant role in my son’s development, his cognitive and problem-solving skills, blah, blah, blah, his sensory awareness, blah, blah, and his manual dexterity, blah, blah, blah.  More important to me is that it sparks imagination and creativity.  I can see that creating art is building his self-confidence, and with each additional visit to a gallery or museum, he is building awareness – and hopefully an appreciation – for different cultures, as well as learning to respect alternative viewpoints.  Why just the other day, we argued for two hours over what exactly Thomas Hirschhorn was trying to say in that one work in the Geffen Contemporary at MOCA.

I recently found out about a fellow artist and mum, Jude, who decided to launch Artful Kids and Artful Adventures  after working several years in museums and galleries.  The former is a business which aims to present children’s artwork at its best.  So, when displaying your little ones’ Pollock or Kandinsky renditions, if you’re considering graduating from White Tac, double-sided tape or good ol’ chewing gum to really showcasing their art, go to Artful Kids immediately.  And I mean immediately; do not waste time passing go or collecting £200.  Artful Adventures is Jude’s blog dedicated to the subject of children’s artwork.  She blogs on a variety of topics, including tutorials, ideas and tips for displaying and storing children’s artwork, and relevant products and news.  There is also a monthly “Featured Artist” selected from children’s artwork submitted to the Artful Kids Flickr Group. 

Most of my little fella’s recent art projects seem to require the use of scissors.   Whenever the munchkin shears are in his hands, he becomes the sole occupant of his own Scissor World.  He is so focused, so completely engrossed, I waved stickers – his favourite objects on Earth – in front of him, and he didn’t blink.  I did my best Shrek impersonation, and he could care less.  I asked him if he wanted to go in the room and jump up and down on the bed with me, and he gave me a look as if to say, “Can’t you see I’m cutting here.  Please stop your obnoxious behaviour.”

With these cut-out creations, there is one challenge – how best to stick them on the walls.  He wants each one millimetre by one millimetre piece he cuts to also be presented on the wall.  Luckily, the “Tac, tac, tac” allows us to accomplish this.  And we are able to live in our own Edward Scissorhands Gallery.

My name is Lisha, and I am an enabler.  My son has had an addiction for the past two years and shows no signs of overcoming this obsession.  Because he is nearly three years old, one might imagine his addiction involves some sort of sport, imitating animal noises, or having tantrums.  In fact, my munchkin is addicted to stickers.

It all started with a sticker book his grandparents gave him when he was nearly a year old.  Because it had reusable stickers with those wax-like pages, we wore that book out until it had five of its 40 pages and 2 ½ stickers left.  Fearing a sticker meltdown, I bought more stickers and stuck them on the remaining handful of pages as my son slept.   Upon waking up, he went straight to the place he always went – his sticker book.  He opened it up, smiled from ear to ear, and probably wondered how the sticker fairy was capable of performing such a tremendous feat.

Because at this stage, my little prince was most interested in trying to peel stickers off of pages as opposed to putting them on, I was filling up empty pages at 2am.  My husband would walk by, shake his head, and say something about the adhesive affecting my brain.

At a later stage, when the little fella preferred to stick stickers – onto a door, wall, table, desk, bed or one of us – instead of peel them, I was the indispensable sticker peeler offer.  In one day, I was the proud peeler of 800 of the 1000 stickers in one book.  Of course, that same evening, fearing that the remaining 200 stickers would disappear in all of one hour and my son would get delirium stickermens, I ran to the nearest bookshop to see if they had any of these same sticker books.   Here is an account of those few minutes in the bookshop:

Me (to woman with bookshop badge on her shirt):  Pardon me.  Where might I find the little red sticker books with one thousand stickers inside?
Woman:  Oh, I think we sold out of those.
Me:  No, that’s impossible.  Please find one immediately.
Woman:  Please, Miss, calm down.  I’ll have a look in the stock room.
Me:  Please don’t come back out here until you’ve found one.
Woman:  (dirty look)
Me:  (waiting as patiently as possible)
Me:  (still waiting as patiently as possible)
Me (inside stock room):  Pardon me.  Ma’am, are you in here?  Are you still looking for the sticker book?
Woman:  You’re not allowed in here.  Please go back into the bookshop.  I’m still looking.
Me:  Do you have any idea what that sticker book means to me?
Woman:  I’m guessing it means something monumental.  Now please go back into the bookshop.
Me:  Are you sure you don’t need help looking?
Woman:  Please, Ma’am, please.  Go back into the bookshop before I have to call security.
Me:  (waiting as patiently as possible)
Woman (exiting stock room six minutes later):  I found three.
Me:  All of them, I need all of them.

With my bag of books in tow, I stepped outside the shop, reached inside the bag for one of the books and proceeded to flip through it, sniff the pages and use my index finger and thumb to peel one solitary sticker and relish in a moment in which the Earth stopped, and only my digits and the bonding agent on the back of this lone sticker existed.

Who was really addicted, you ask?  Good question.  Since we humans often use addictions to avoid confronting something, was there something I was trying to avoid?  I contemplated this for a long time, and realised that I wasn’t trying to avoid having to wear the big bad wolf and pig hand puppets and act out the same scene for the hundredth time, I wasn’t trying to avoid learning the difference between an apatosaurus and a brachiosaurus, nor was I trying to avoid making vegetable soup in the play kitchen (out of chocolate cake, a croissant and a burger).  I wasn’t avoiding anything.  I was perhaps addicted, though, to seeing my son smile and laugh.  Stickers seem to be his personal cloud nine.

Why?  Surely the tactile component of the sticker adhesive – contemporary descendant of birch-bark-tar and plant gum – isn’t the only attraction.  Stickers offer so much more than this.  They represent a time when my son has my undivided attention and during which he is genuinely learning.  The sticker books he particularly favours are those that require matching shapes, numbers, letters, objects, colours, animals, dinosaurs or people.  Thus, he is discovering his colours, numbers and the alphabet, as well as how to recognise different shapes and forms.  His visual perception, along with eye-hand coordination and manual dexterity are all getting a workout.  And who knew stickers alone could be so beneficial for verbal communication, fostering the ability to focus, and lengthening my little guy’s attention span. 

Our sticker activities are also helping to develop his reading skills and boosting his and my vocabulary and knowledge.  Just this week, I learned that the wings of a Blue Morpho butterfly have been used in jewellery making and that the Irrawaddy dolphin has a constant smile on its face.

During these formative years, I appreciate the importance of play and one-on-one time.  I admit that sometimes when I hear the word “stickers” from my little Enlai’s mouth, I think, “Oh, please, can’t we do something else, please, please, please.”  But I know that what he wants and needs is for us to spend time together, for me listen to him and take pleasure in playing with him, and if he chooses stickers as his preferred activity, I’m happy to indulge.  I’m also content to make a complete fool of myself the many times I’ve walked out of our flat unaware that I had stickers on my bum, pants, coat or on the bottom of my boots. 

For ideas on which sticker books your little ones might like, I encourage you to browse the sticker books in the Oomphalos Bookworms Bookshop. 

Confession time.  Before I was a mama, I would sometimes “forget” appointments or special events such as engagement parties or birthday dos.  The minority of the time, I truly didn’t remember.  But the other big fat percentage of time, I gave preference to forty winks, a work deadline, or a hot date.

It appears that such behaviour started backfiring once I became pregnant, and to this day, I am being punished for breaking the Thou Shalt Not Pretend to Forget commandment.  I am becoming murky-minded and absent-brained.  Or is it absent-minded and murky-brained? 

In the last two weeks, I genuinely forgot two of my closest friends’ birthdays.  A month ago, I forgot the pin numbers of the two cards I use most.  Over the last couple of years, when friends asked my opinion of One Hundred Years of Solitude or The Wind-up Bird Chronicle, I froze, not able to recall even the protagonists’ names.  I recommended Kieslowski’s “The Double Life of Veronique” to a chum, and when he asked for a synopsis of the film, I think I said something like, “Well, um, well, uh, I can’t really recall.”  He enquired, “Oh, did you watch it a while back?”  I responded, “No, I watched it last night.”

It’s zenith time for this failing to remember dilemma as I now feel as though I’m forgetting to forget.  At present, though I’m likely not forgetting anything, I build up a panic, convincing myself that I’ve forgotten something.  Athazagoraphobia, anyone? 

When I was about five months pregnant, I blanked on which subway line I was to take – the same one I’d been taking every day for months.  It was then that I decided to read more about “pregnancy amnesia”.  According to studies, large percentages of pregnant women reported some type of absentmindedness or inability to concentrate.  Fantastic!  I wasn’t riding solo in losing my mind; I was joining the legions of pregnant women who temporarily lose their minds, so to speak.

Whether it was caused by surging hormone levels, iron deficiency or stress, this pregnancy amnesia stuff wasn’t proving to be a provisional thing.  Into my third trimester, brain fogginess increased.  My preoccupation with the actual labour (my pain threshold is reached with a paper cut), along with the prospect of becoming responsible for a new human life caused me to show up to work sans bra and with mascara on only one eye on more than one occasion.  No, I wasn’t looking for a promotion; I was looking for a memory impairment repairman.  I would boil eggs and then accidentally forget about them until the smoke alarm went off.  And, I mistakenly gave the pizza delivery guy the wrong address.

This memory mumbo jumbo was out of control, so I consulted the experts again.  I found that one woman in a “pregnancy brain” study reported bumping into doors and walls, dropping kitchen utensils, burning herself, twisting her ankle, and spraying herself with poisonous weed-killer because of her poor coordination and inability to concentrate.  One doctor noted that there are 15 to 40 times more progesterone and estrogen pickling the brain during pregnancy, and these hormones affect all kinds of neurons in the brain.  She said that pregnancy shuffles what gets your attention, and because you only have so many shelves in your brain, during gestation, the top three are filled with baby stuff.  Another doctor in one of my what to expect when you’ve a bun in the oven guides posited that there may also be an evolutionary facet to pregnancy brain – memory malfunctions may be helpful so that women will forget about presumably unimportant bits and pieces and focus on caring for their child.

After I gave birth to my little bundle of joy, I was no longer able to blame my cobwebbed-synapses on pregnancy brain.  Sleep deprivation was now my rationalization for leaving our home barefoot in winter and not being able to recall my own name at times.  Apparently, we new mamas accumulate up to 700 hours of sleep debt during the first year of our little angels’ lives, causing that silly cerebrum to not be in top form for anything other than caring for the cherubs.

My husband said that getting more sleep would help with my remembering what decade we were living in and what day of the week it was, and I know I wrote “get more sleep” on at least 20 Post-its, but I was forever losing the Post-its and surprise, surprise, couldn’t remember where to find them. 

I asked my mom if she experienced momnesia, and she said that while she didn’t experience momnesia, the memory muggers did pay a visit to her after her hysterectomy.  She still doesn’t know whether it was the erratic hormones or the anaesthesia.  I told her it was likely the former as the hormone experts believe that fluctuating hormones – particularly during periods or menopause – can cause diminished memory and changes in thinking.

Unfortunately, neither repenting for pretending to forget nor comprehending the memory hiccups and concentration coughs solves my quandary.  I need to strengthen my synapses and recoup my brainpower, and since novelty and sensory stimulation are key, I’ll start with baby step neurobic exercises recommended by the memory pros, such as brushing my teeth with my nondominant hand and taking a shower with my eyes closed.  Neither of these should be too difficult as when I brush my teeth, I’m usually interrupted by my little guy asking for something which requires me to use both of my hands, resulting in my near mastering of handless tooth brushing.  And, since I’m exhausted a fair amount of time, taking a shower with heavy eyelids that are nearly closed is nothing new.  I think I’m ready for advanced neurobics, perhaps some underwater basket weaving and darkroom chess playing.

The authorities on all things recollection also suggest regular exercise, managing stress and good sleep habits.  Now where did I put those Post-its?  I need to write this down so I don’t forget how to start remembering.

The effect was similar when I viewed Anish Kapoor’s “Past Present Future” and Berlinde De Bruyckere’s “Schmerzensmann IV”. I was a mess, and no amount of intellectualizing the work could keep the weepies away. And these were pre-mama days. Now, I’m a wailing fool. I took my tiny tot to see Cy Twombly at Tate Modern a couple years ago, and because the flood caused by my tears could not be contained, I was afraid Mr. Todoli would never allow me back on the premises.  

This Mother’s Day (in the US), I thought it an opportune time to share with you a selection of ten artworks which have left lasting impressions on my psyche. All of the pieces were either created by a mother, depict a mother, were inspired by a mother, or serve as a visual ode to a mother. I am intrigued by the media – human placenta and umbilical cord – the psychology, humour, grief, empathy, and the decision to portray the complex being known as a mother in these pieces.  

Speaking of complex, any suggestions on how to usher my own little magnum opus – the one that’s running around the house with nothing but his birthday suit and an Iron Man mask on and saying “neighhh, neighhh” – into the bath?  

Anish Kapoor
Mother as a Mountain, 1985

Dorothea Lange
Young migratory mother, originally from Texas, 1940
Records of the Bureau of Agriculture, USA

Damien HirstMother and Child Divided, 1993Tate Collection© Damien Hirst

Hyacinthe RigaudPortrait of the Artist's Mother, 1695Musée du Louvre, Paris

Pablo PicassoMother and Child, c.1901Harvard Art Museum/Fogg MuseumBequest from the Collection of Maurice Wertheim

Julia Margaret CameronDivine Love, Mary Hillier, 1865

Marc ChagallBella with White Collar, 1917 Private Collection

Marc QuinnLucas, 2001

Jenny SavilleReproduction drawing I (after the Leonardo cartoon), 2009-2010 Gagosian Gallery, London

Zhang XiaogangMother with Three Sons (The Family Portrait), 1993

My husband calls it the Black Hole, and any time I ask him to get the baby wipes or snacks out of my bag, he rolls his eyes, exhales for approximately 42.7 seconds and then says, “You know I won’t find them.”  My friends and family have also taken notice of and commented on the ebony monstrosity, asking if it’s really necessary to carry around enough contents to sustain a small country.

A month ago, the woman at the British Airways counter eyed my bag and asked if I wanted to check it in, and I told her that it was one of my carry-ons.  Her eyes turned as large as a bush baby’s, and I immediately said, “It’s malleable.  It looks big, but actually there’s not much inside, and it squishes down.”  My husband laughed under his breath, while I hoped she wouldn’t ask me to show her just how malleable it was.

My precious raven sack came to be because of the ineffectiveness of three changing/diaper bags.  I could fit a blanket, baby wipes, and four nappies/diapers in the first one, but where was I to put the changing mat, toys, my wallet, my water and my umbrella (these were pre-buggy days when we only used a baby carrier, so taking advantage of the buggy basket was not an option).  The second one fit six diapers and the rest of the baby accoutrement, but had so many zippers, snaps and Velcro, I thought I was in contraption purgatory.  And while I usually favour compartmentalisation, my lack of ambidexterity – one hand was typically being used to hold my son or push his buggy – didn’t go hand-in-hand with one hand (no pun intended) trying to open a rigid zipper or tear apart stubborn Velcro.  The strap on the third bag broke.

After a couple of experiences being on the receiving end of items from a friend or family member’s mini-suitcase bag, I vowed never to go down this road.  I once asked my friend for a piece of gum, and she then asked her mom.  Her mom proceeded to reach in her purse, retrieve two sticks of gum and give them to us.  Both sticks had half the wrapper missing, leaving a portion of the gum to be semi-sticky with various crumbs stuck to it.  I asked my friend if her mom just supplied me with already-been-chewed gum.  On another occasion, I asked my cousin for a tissue.  She gave me a mangled up piece of something that resembled a paper handkerchief, with strips falling out as she handed it to me.  And it felt moist.

Pair my aversion to whopping carryalls due to peculiar contents with trying to avoid bagis causingis lopsidedness caused by hefty holdalls, and for years I was the proud owner of darling little handbags, satchels and clutches.   I remember these years fondly, but alas right now they’re not practical.  You can’t fit a portable potty in a clutch. 

I nearly wept when my friends who don’t have children revealed to me what was in their bags – things like lip-expanding lip gloss, hair serum, mini hairbrush, perfume, heels,  lightweight sparkly scarf, and cigarettes.  One friend said that within her purse she had a little “just in case” bag complete with a travel size hair gel, facewash, a pair of undies and a tank top/vest.  I nearly wept because I was longing for a time and also because I realised that my “just in case” bag means something totally different, such as just in case he pees his pants, just in case he and I are covered in his lunch, or just in case he becomes so unruly that I have to resort to Ice Age on the iPod.

All things considered, though, I was surprised at how similar the bag contents were.  They had keys, a mobile, iPod, wallet, glasses, diary/planner, bottled water, receipts, scribbled lists, pen, hand sanitizer, tissues and Chap Stick, as did I.  Maybe my life-size luggage isn’t a “mom bag” after all. 

Or, maybe upon further inspection, it is.  My friends have gum, candy and Tic Tacs.  I have M&Ms, but they’re for the little guy.  They have aspirin “for hangovers”.  I have baby medicine for teething and fever.  They have “feminine products”.  Does a diaper/nappy count?  I was excited to hear that my friend who has a dog also carries a sweater, treats and doggie bags for her canine in her bag, the equivalent of a change of clothes, snacks and nappy sacks in my bag for my little guy.  Turns out I have a few extras: napkins, a camera, baby wipes, a portable potty, juice, sidewalk chalk, crayons, various toys, rocks, sticks, and a combination of crumbs, sand and dirt blanketing the bottom of my almost-duffel.

Strangely, I’m the complete opposite of a hoarder.  Clutter gives me the itchies, and my husband says that I could survive with one stick of Swedish furniture in our home.  I don’t know how this all happened – becoming a big bag mama – but I think I can pinpoint the changeover to three events.  I forgot baby medicine during a particularly difficult teething spell, enough diapers when a stomach bug came out of nowhere, and snacks during a playgroup when my little guy wouldn’t even blink at the snacks on offer.  Thankfully, none of the situations turned out to be catastrophic, but the potential was there.  So, to avoid future possible calamities, I would err on the side of throwing everything but the kitchen sink and any dirty dishes within it in my bag.

To the grand sac noir naysayers, I say please do not worry yourselves with anticipated alterations to my posture, but rather relish in the fact that I am temporarily providing a service.  My days of carrying an immense sack will soon be over, but in the meantime I plan to remain a Good Humanibagitarian, providing snacks to little ones who don’t like the snacks their own parents provide, nappy sacks to customers who walk out of the market, drop a wine bottle and need something to put the pieces of glass in, baby wipes to complete strangers who spill, and crayons and pages torn from my planner to parents of boisterous little ones at the table next to me.

Wish me luck, empathetic friends, family and fellow parents of the world, because I now need to go into my bag and find a pirate and a gecko for a certain little someone.

 
A friend of mine – one of nine children – once told me that the babysitters his parents decided to enlist were a couple hippies who lived down the street.  They made the little ones sing Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin songs while dancing around a pretend campfire.  Following this activity, they’d all sit down, combing and braiding each other’s hair and giving each other fake tattoos.  I told him his remembrances made me want to throw on some bell bottoms and watch Woodstock clips on VH1.

My own walk down babysitter memory lane was a tad different.  My older cousin watched us siblings, and as she microwaved our ice cream because it wouldn’t readily come out of the carton, we listened to Boy George asking if we really wanted to hurt him and Michael Jackson insisting that Billie Jean was not his lover.  Our parents let us rent a scary movie, and as we all viewed it together, my cousin covered her eyes for most of it, asking if we shouldn’t consider a different film.

As an adult, I strived to be babysitter par excellence when parents entrusted the lives of their precious offspring to me.  I once babysat my cousin and godson together, creating an elaborate haunted house inside my apartment in order to entertain them, only to find out my cousin was scared of ghosts, goblins and anything that said, “booooooh, scaaaaaarrryyyy” in the dark. 

Luckily, I had the opportunity to watch them on a few other occasions, and I vowed to make up for the fright night fiasco.  Because my music producer boyfriend had his recording studio in our place, I thought it would be a great idea to give the two boys a recording session.  They grabbed the microphones, sang and rapped to their hearts’ content and seemed to genuinely enjoy themselves.  Years later, their mom told me that they still talk about that day.  I was overjoyed.  That is, until she told me that that what they talk about is what a weirdo my boyfriend was, not the session.  Well, A for effort.

When I considered a babysitter for my own little guy, a friend recommended www.sitters.co.uk.  I looked at the site, agreed with what the founders were trying to provide – a convenient, reliable service that allows busy parents an opportunity for an active social life while their little one(s) are looked after – but I wasn’t comfortable with a complete stranger watching over my son so my husband and I could have some dry martinis. 

I secretly conceived plans to convince family and friends to move to London.  For if they were in close proximity as opposed to thousands of miles away, I might have a few selfish hours to paint or photograph.  No, instead, I’d catch up on reading my Gourmet, Modern Painters or Parents magazines still in their plastic wrappers from ten months ago or the 237 unopened emails in my inbox.  No, wait, I know, I know.  I’d take a run in Regent’s Park.  No, no, no, better yet, I’d take a blanket and my iPod to the park and find a nice spot to relax, but only after I had a two-hour massage.  Or, I’d just sleep.  Oh, to daydream. 

Since daydreams allow the brain to make new connections, I contemplated my head-in-the-clouds spell in the bright London sunshine (well, in the dazzling artificial light inside our flat).  I opted to read my Parents magazine while my son slept.  There was an abundance of information on how to choose a babysitter, babysitting blunders, reporting bad babysitters, hotel babysitting, and separation anxiety. 

Now feeling as though I was a part-time student in the Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about Babysitting, Knowing Full Well Your Issue Is Separation Anxiety course, I made myself find a childminder.  I found the babysitter extraordinaire – the instructor in one of my son’s music classes.  She was the only person I trusted to watch my tiny little fella at the time, and she proved to be not only a wonderful babysitter, but also a fantastic friend. 

More recently, I started to participate in a babysitting ring.  We are a group of moms who have agreed to babysit for each other on a pseudo barter system.  At the initiation of the ring, each of us was given an equal amount of pegs/clothespins.  When one of us babysits, we are given a peg by the mom who procured our expert childminding services.  When we enlist, we give a peg to the mom who babysits.

Meanwhile, another mom mentioned to me that she uses Miss Software Application as her babysitter.  She, like me, has no family in the country and has difficulty trusting Sally down the street or Betty up the block, so she opts to use Skype as her babysitter.  She sets up her toddler daughter in front of the computer, calls her mom on Skype, and while the tot and her gran “visit”, my friend is able to do some laundry, dishes or other household tasks in the vicinity.  She says she sometimes hears her daughter run to her room to grab a toy or paper to show grandma through the webcam.  I think to ask my friend if she’s ever had to consider installing a secret babysitter cam to make sure there’s no “wrongsaying” on the part of her mom during the Skype session.  Just a little technology humor.

While I haven’t used Skype, I have used Tarzan, Aladdin and Nemo as babysitters.  A gal has to shower, ya know.  And, cooking meals with a monkey on my leg isn’t always straightforward, especially with stir fries.  There is also a lot of effort required to talk on the phone while my little man sits next to me imitating the roars of Allosauruses and Baryonyxes.  So, I don’t feel too guilty getting by with a little Disney help.

The reality is my little prince and I are quite attached, and it’s been a difficult journey for me to leave him with a babysitter.  Now, when I leave him, he says, “Go, go, go, ma.  You’ll be right back.”  As with most parents, I try not to worry about my child when we’re apart, but worry has a way of sneaking up on parents even when they’re trying their best not to fret.  When I return home, I always tell my little guy I missed him.  And he responds, “I missed you, mama.”  And all is right in the world.