At the Wendy’s in Truro, on the way to Shediac for the long weekend: the first time I have ever simultaneously felt both offense and solidarity.

Our table-neighbour appraised us with some degree of affinity, smiling in our direction in the way some people do. Wanting to let us know with sheer enthusiasm that we’re welcome in public, despite the disturbance of peace and the mess we leave behind.

Evan was artfully war-painted in smears of chili, beaming kidney bean-squashed grins at every female who passed and shrieking every time he managed to crush a soda cracker in the palm of his hand. We’re used to it now, the wide berth granted to us by other diners. One look at the floor under his highchair and they know well enough to stay just outside of firing range.

No matter how well we think we're holding it together, we're a rabble of bumbling, staggering half-wits to the outside world. Accompanied by that circus ditty the band plays when the juggling clowns pedal into the big top on unicycles wearing gigantic red shoes.

“Doesn’t that make you want one of your own?” our neighbour piped cheerfully to her companion.

“Ugh,” the companion sniffed, loudly. “Makes me not want to ever have one.”

Part of me wanted to grab her whale’s tail from out back of her pants and yank it up over her head. How could she possibly look upon my sweet, miraculous boy and be anything other than charmed to the core? But then, what struck me as funny: she was me, two years ago. All except for the butt cleavage.

I looked at him as she must have, as I did on all kids: smelly, inconvenient, embarrassing and cumbersome. Compounded by the fact that his newfound toddlerhood has a way of getting on my nerves… a constant battle of wills in which my opponent keeps putting on advantageous weight and strength.

The upside simply doesn’t make sense: I’m most proud of him when he’s filthy. It’s the sign of a day well-lived. And I’m proud of myself at the end of a truly god-forsaken episode, when he gets poop on my clothes and sand in his crack and chews on my hair and pinches the skin on my neck and uses his head as a morning wake-up battering ram.

Being proven capable – not perfect, but capable – is a more gratifying rush than the satisfaction you get from being childless and free.

I'm starting to truly believe it.

I sat in silence as the car pulled away from the driveway. Headed off with Evan for a boys-only errand excursion, Justin’s parting words rang through my head: Have a nice time! Relax. Do something for yourself.

Problem is, I don’t know what myself does with her own time. I’ve been spit out the other side of an identity crisis, and my forehead cursor still blinks PROCESSING… PROCESSING… PROCESSING… frozen, hung. I’m a grey mass, a bag-of-mostly-water, a robot set to continuous play. I hover and leap and sing on cue. I scramble cheesy eggs and fill sippy cups and dispense Teddy Puffs. I empty the dishwasher, start a load of laundry and toast toastletts, all with Evan ‘Static-Cling’ Inglis firmly koala-beared to my leg.

Commuters blink and end up twenty miles further down the highway, driving not while asleep but while on mental standby. Likewise I looked upon my son at 8:30 AM this morning, fully dressed and breakfasted, as he methodically emptied the kitchen cupboard one soup can at a time. Did I do all that? Is it so natural now? So automatic? Apparently so.

Where does this boundless energy come from, that light we pour into the well-being and growth of our kids? Why is there none to spare for us? Wouldn’t we be better mothers for it?

It takes a few years. But when it kicks in, it floors you: when you pay rent, you make someone else wealthy. Justin and I have been together for eleven years, and paying rent for ten. To date, we've poured upwards of $96,000 into other peoples' mortgages.

<insert disgusted silence here>

We want something old, but loved. A farmhouse with a pantry. Painted wood floors. Stairs that creak. Warm and smokey. Tucked-in, nestled in woods that harbour winding brooks and hidden lakes. A meadow instead of a lawn, filled with secret pathways through walls of raspberry bushes and goldenrod. Too much to hope for, too soon?

I realize we’re not going to buy the home of our dreams, first time out. But I still expect some feeling to wash over me when we go inside the house that’s meant to be ours. This is it! Regardless of an old roof or foundation cracks or walls destined for the sledgehammer. This place belongs to us, fits us. And we belong to it.

We’re looking half-heartedly, each time feeling a little dejected when we walk in the door and feel nothing, a flatness, the indifferent politeness of someone else’s space.

The whole experience reminds me of dating, circa 1995. Even with an improved haircut and better shoes, this one’s still too much of a compromise. Or that one’s great on paper, but void of chemistry. And the same advice applies, I think: have faith. The right one will make itself known to us in its own good time.

It will, won’t it?

In his bath he is Luke Skywalker in the Death Star’s trash compactor. He splashes through a sudsy pool of debris: wind-up divers, squirters and squeakers, stick-on flowers, fish, snails, butterflies, twizzlers and fizzlers. There’s barely room left in that tub for him.

In the highchair he is forever the critic.

In the house he is a dragonfly, circling and buzzing, bumping up cheerfully against the perimeter in search of stimulation and escape.

Outside he is a puppy, unhinged, clumsy and joyous.

Upon being carried inside he is a wailing sack of potatoes, unfailingly despondent.

After an absence he is static cling, full of secrets and kisses, all cashew buttery and cream cheesy hands and fingers entangled in my hair and gripping my neck. Mine, mine, all mine he grins, folding into me, owning me. I complain and tease my magnet-boy, but I love it.

On being lifted out of the crib he is three hundred pounds.

On me he is etched, but more as a phantom limb as he grows up and away. Every day he is more himself, full of his own opinions and priorities, leaving me with an intense mix of bittersweetness, protectiveness, fear and pride.

But every day of growing up and away adds more to the mystery. More to unravel, decode. Flirts: check. Impatient with books: check. Wave-fearless: check. Collector of rocks: check. Each subject to change at any point, but noteworthy just the same.

I often find Evan, a small-spaces boy, tucked happily into a box or cupboard playing Boat or Cave or Fort. A few days ago, he discovered a wicker laundry basket with slanted sides. Cool.

He dragged it to the middle of the living room wearing a concentrated scowl, fixing to climb aboard. But lo! Every time he’d swing his leg over the side, the whole thing would upend. He’d huff, extricate himself, right his boat and try again. And again. And again. Each time being unceremoniously dumped in a boy-basket pile on the floor.

I’d retreated to the kitchen, having left him to his play. I was chopping tomatoes or some other such dinner thing when I heard a frustrated “AAARRRRGGGH!”.

I stopped. Silence. [I like him to try solving his own problems, find his feet after bumps, before stepping in.] More silence. Then “UUUGGGNNNGGH!!!!!!” and the sound of a basket being kicked. “AAAAAARRRRGGGHH!”

I peered around the corner to see Evan in a face-off. He was MAD. Not sad-mad, poor-me baby’s mad. Toddler mad. Effing mad. Frigging-stoopidhead mad.

He swung round to glare at me, quite wild-eyed with fury. “AAAAARRRRGGGHH!!!” he screamed, locking eyes with me, baring teeth and stamping feet. He swirled around with another “AAARRGGGGHH!!” and bit the side of the basket. Take THAT! And another kick. And THAT!

He ran circles around the room, whacking everything within arms’ reach. Back to the basket, one more leg over the side, one more upend and one more “AAARRRRRRGGGHHH!”

Then, depleted, he collapsed on the floor and looked at me, panting and seething. A strange feeling, a new vibration to process. I have this energy.. and I have to get rid of it.. it’s going to be messy.. stand back, and don’t you dare get in my way.

This is some dark and inevitable stuff. I knew it was coming, but haven’t had to think of it until now. What if another kid’s on the receiving end? I’m sure it will happen, and I will be duly mortified.

Trouble is, I have absolutely no clue what to do. None. Do I ignore it, as long as no one is within flailing range? Grab him and hold him until he calms? Distract? Empathize? Mimic? Show him how silly his ARRRGGGHs sound? Try to make him laugh? Dump him in the playpen and leave the room until he gets hold of himself?

I need to figure this out, nip it in the bud. Teach him how to release his anger in a way that’s sensible, safe. The last thing I want to do when he explodes is reward him with attention. I need to diffuse the bomb with minimal fuss, and then move on. That’s my instinct, but I’ve no effing idea how to apply it.