TEAM TAMARA YYC

     Ordinarily, a music educator for a middle school and a newspaper reporter for a big city paper would never cross paths. In fact, it took turning a whole new page of life for us to meet.

     In October of 2007, I gave birth to a boy named Alexander. I was a veteran teacher and a well educated professional, but this was a new world, filled with new and sometimes frustrating challenges. The City of Calgary Health Authority offered free Mommy and Me classes to talk women through some of the initial transitions to being a mother once a week for a month. I enrolled in the class despite the cold weather that January. 

     The meeting place was the Deerfoot Meadows Superstore community room; a cold, but spacious area up above the bustling grocery store. On the first day, there were nine women, ranging in age from 19 to 42, with newborns up to about 6 months. Each woman was given time to tell her birth story and to share a bit about what was going on in her life. Tamara sat with the most energetic little girl in the room. At five months old, Bronwyn was so alert and so active that Tamara had to keep adjusting her position to keep her from tumbling from her lap. I was immediately drawn to Tamara's voice, which strangely is almost identical to another of my friends, and to her stories of Bronwyn, the no-sleep baby. 

     Alexander had just entered the no-sleep stage and I could relate to the sheer exhaustion of sleeping only two hours at a stretch. The next week, the class had thinned down to 6 participants, three finding it to difficult to attend, or not what they needed. The following week was down to 5 and by the last class, only Tamara and I remained, both of us determined to figure out this parenting thing. At that point, I realized that despite the strangeness of it all, at least I had found someone to travel the path with me into the new world of “mommy”. 

     Since then, we have compared notes on everything; feeding (breast or bottle), diaper rash, eczema, sleeping, first words, first steps, childcare, day-cares, milestones, accidents and incidents. She loaned me the book that taught me how to teach my son to sleep on his own. We discovered common loves of literature, the written word, music and great food. We are both married to men who are wonderful fathers, but perhaps a danger to themselves and others when it comes to handyman chores. We have shared adventures, meals and birthdays. I even provided some labour coaching over the phone when she first went into labour with her second child, Finn; as Bronwyn had been induced, natural labour was a new experience for Tamara. Bronwyn loves Alexander and my husband Dave and so she was pleased to stay with us when Heath and Tamara went to the hospital to welcome Finn to the world. 

      Like Tamara and Heath, we have no immediate family in the city and it has been a blessing to be a part of their village and for them to be a part of ours. Bronwyn and Alexander are the dearest of friends and Alexander thinks of Finn as a younger brother he adores. Tamara is an awesome mother. She arranged her work to allow her time to be home with her children who are both wonderful and individual.