Confessions #1 - I didn’t plan to be a “Super Mom”. The thing is I love babies.  I especially love bathing and dressing them, but I didn’t realize that babies grow into teenage-mutant-door-slamming-monsters or that I’d be raising a tribe of them on my own. Did I mention of have SIX of these monsters? Anyway, that’s what happened.  And I guess I make it look easy because people call me “Super Mom”, which is really a pleasant euphemism for “the crazy woman with all those kids.”

Confessions #2 – Even after 20 years, I still haven’t perfected the art of sneaking out of bed without waking the little munchkins (aka monsters). Yes, one of them is usually in my bed. Most mornings start at dawn with me trying to ease out of bed to grab some coffee and workout before they wake up and start World War III.  This is never successful. Usually, as I’m easing off the bed, my 7 year old (with her eyes closed) says, “I want coffee, too.” Then, I sigh and plod downstairs with her and Cat close behind. Cat is actually a cat. I call her Cat and my children call her Sister, but I’m sure I didn’t birth her.

Confession #3 – My morning workouts consist more of dancing than actually running on the treadmill. I realize that now because one of my mutant-teenage-monsters secretly videoed me doing just that. Once on the treadmill, iPhone blaring away, I constantly hop-straddle the side strips, gyrating to songs like Gal A Bubble. The coffee is kicking in by then, you see. That’s when my 18 year old daughter usually descends and gasps, “Oh GAWD Mom! Old people can’t dance like that.”

FYI: I’M OFFICIALLY 28 YEARS OLD, SO I CAN DANCE HOWEVER I WANT!

Whoa, lost it there for a bit.

Confession #4 – I’m NOT superhuman, so sometimes I lose it.

Anyway, after grumpy, big sister descends, a wave of teenagers rush downstairs - all screaming for coffee (they love coffee), for conditioner (I think they drink that too); one is screaming to get into the shower (they still love to bathe – yes, that’s my fault), one  needs her clothes out of the dryer (they hate ironing); another needs the iron because the stupid dryer doesn’t iron clothes well enough, they all need lunch money, they need black socks; one needs me to write a note because there is NO WAY she is swimming in that disgusting pool, boy-twin needs a note because he’s too sick to do PE, and the 7 year old needs a note because I forgot to buy the stuff for her project. Again. Oops. Sorry, honey.

Eventually, they all gather at the front door. Good. They’re leaving. But first…they remind me to bring lunch money; I tell them what to cook for dinner; they moan and beg for pizza; the twins start choking each other; I scream at them to stop - they’re going to miss the bus; grumpy, big sister checks herself in the mirror again; I scream that she’s going to miss the bus; the girl-twin announces she’s colouring her curls a fiery red; the 7 year old  declares she’s colouring her hair too; I scream that they’re all going to miss the bus; they crowd the treadmill to kiss me bye (which takes a while). And as they finally leave, grumpy, big sister yells over her shoulder, “Enjoy your dirty-dancing workout, Mom.” Rolls eyes. Slams door. Monster.

Confession #5 - I AM the crazy woman with all those kids.

My mother was far from the typical lovey-dovey mothers you see on TV. Faaaar from it.  She wasn’t the “let’s have some tea and talk it over” type. She was more the “you better hush ‘fore I knock you out” type. Needless to say, I had a very odd and stressful childhood.

For one thing, when I was growing up, mother always insisted she was dying. Yes, she’s been dying for as long as I can remember.  She was so serious about this, she listened to the radio each Sunday choosing sad songs for her funeral. The Old Rugged Cross was her top pick. Just As I Am was another. Yes, Sundays were quite depressing.

And three things would happen when anyone else on Cayman Brac died:

1. Mother would claim she was dying from the same illness. “Yeah, I got the same thing poor, ole Johnny had. I         gonna soon be gone, too.”
2. She would swear she had a premonition of the neighbour’s death in a dream.
3. She would swear the neighbor’s ghost visited her during the night.

Do you know how stressful it is when your mother is a ghost whisper?

Mother was also NOT the soothing type. Sympathy was rare for fear of raising children who were “soft.” So, her reaction to me standing there with the top half of my toe stubbed off, was, “Wha’don’t kill yuh, makes yuh stronger.”  Then, she’d generously dump flour on my wounded toe and send me off to play. Limping. No disinfectant. No, I quickly learned not to ask for that or the rubbing alcohol might come out. Band-Aids? Not a chance. If I was lucky, she would fashion a crude (horrendously embarrassing) bandage from a ripped t-shirt around my disfigured toe. There. Now, limp away and go play.

And mother never said things like, “Don’t worry. Everything will be okay.” Instead, she chanted, “That’s wha’ yuh get because you don’t listen to nothing I say.”

But anxiety was a normal part of life with mother for other reasons - she constantly had “bad feelings” (aka foreboding feelings), her “bad eye” was always jumping and her sinister dreams and superstitions usually predicted some ominous occurrence. For example:

• If she dreamed about white sand – someone was going to die.
• If a black cat crossed the left side of the road – someone was going to die.
• If she dreamed about dirty water – someone was going to die.
• If she saw a black snake – someone was going to die.
• If her bad eye jumped – something bad was going to happen – someone was probably going to die.

• If her good eye jumped…wait… HER GOOD EYE NEVER JUMPED.

Mother even admonished us if we laughed too much. She’d say, “Laughing brings crying.” Which is code for “someone’s going to die.”

As I got older her pessimism intensified. Prior to the birth of my first child, my (psychic) mother (who was still alive by the way), predicted that I would have an ugly baby.  Her reason? Because two attractive people always have ugly children. This was mother’s ancestral theory – apparently our ghost-whispering ancestors were experts in genealogy.

Still, I tried to benefit from her “no-nonsense” attitude and wisely chose to disregard her other odd opinions.

Eventually, I dumped flour on my own stubbed toes and as I watched the white flour clump and turn a deep maroon, I’d hear her saying, “Wha’don’t kill yuh, makes yuh stronger.” 

In that way I grew up tough, unafraid of hard work, oblivious to ghosts, completely un-phased by the notion of ugly babies, and in possession of copious material about mother to be used for a hilarious bestseller.