Supermom

Before my baby was born, I tried to mentally prepare myself for how much my life would change. No more going to the movies every Tuesday night. No more sleeping in until I woke up on weekends. No more crafting until I dropped. Naturally, nothing could really prepare me for the real thing until it happened but it was a good mental exercise just the same.

As Iain and I move through his first seasons together, I am learning as I go. Many, many things have changed and, yet, some things have not. For example, the lawn still has to be mowed, baby or no. For the past couple of weeks, I have been doing what I’ve been calling ‘patchwork lawn mowing’. I would choose a section of lawn and hope to complete it until Iain, from the confines of his stroller, began to fuss. Once the section was finished, I would take him out of the stroller to crawl around and play while I raked. Luckily, Iain’s favourite tool is a rake! As long as the weather stayed good, I could get the front and one of the side lawns completed in, say, six days. And then start all over again. And did I mention that there was still the larger side and the whole back of the house lawn left?

For three weeks, I diligently kept up my patchwork mowing. I only occasionally stopped to swear when I ran out of cord length (we use an electric mower for environmental reasons. We have a push mower as well but, with just under an acre of property, the push mower is too time consuming. Eventually, we hope to go back to the push mower meaning that most of our property has been changed to flower beds and garden. I think I’d rather weed. Feel free to quote me on that when I start complaining about weeding in a few years). However, once DH directed me to a longer electrical cord stored in the van, I am doing better in that department. Still, once I got the lawn mowed, there was no energy or time to do anything else in the garden, such as weeding, and I knew something had to change.

DH has been looking at a child carrier from MEC ever since Iain was born. I have resisted the idea. I find them heavy without a baby in them and did not want to spend money on something I felt I would rarely use and DH would only use when we go hiking. After all, we do have three slings to choose from. One of my friends has the same carrier that DH was looking at and offered for me to borrow it and try Iain in it for a lawn mowing stint. I still wasn’t convinced. The child hates to be confined (right down to refusing to wear a bib, for heavens sake!) and I choose my battles with him very, very carefully. He is so small and I don’t think it’s fair to him to force him to do something he dislikes so vehemently on a regular basis.

After a short fight regarding the straps and how long it was taking for me to get him ‘locked down’ and into the carrier, an unconvinced Patty headed out with baby Iain and the lawn mower.


Guess what? The kid liked it. He hardly made a sound – unusual for my chatty boy. He liked it so much that he fell asleep while I worked. I thought that was so cute that I marched right into the house and got out the camera, with Iain on my back and asleep the whole time.

I also took some garden shots and you can see the unfinished mowing job in the background.

Amazingly, I also managed to get the whole front lawn with all the side bits completed. In. One. Day. The next day, I completed the back yard. That’s the whole lawn in two days versus seven to ten. This carrier may be a new modern day miracle.

While I was starting on the first bit of the lawn, two young gentlemen drove by and I waved at them (you do that in small towns). I was turned around and mowing another section so didn’t hear them stop and come over to speak with me. They yelled out from behind me,

"Um, do you need some help?"

I turned around and smiled and said "No thanks." Both were wearing name tags from the Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints church so I can only assume they were young missionaries. One of them said,

"Yeah. We were, like, driving along and there you were with a mower and a cord and a baby on your back and a dog. You’re, like, supermom!"

Supermom? Darn tootin’!