Swollen A-Cup

The Big 0-3

2011-02-19T21:46:00.001-08:00

My daughter just turned 3 last week. For some reason, I've been feeling sentimental and have been looking back at pictures of her from when she was born, and her first few months. Then at 6, 9 months, her first birthday, second birthday, that time she got chocolate ice cream all over herself...

My baby.

Though I know she is the same girl throughout, it's so hard to reconcile that newborn and my bright, brilliant, funny, warm-hearted girl with SO much personality. I was there, I know it's her. I remember all the transitions, all the developments.

But, it's almost, in my head, like these past few years have been lumped into a few major phases and as each passed through, my baby girl was traded in for a new model, which walked and talked, talked more in later versions, was increasingly cognitively advanced and dexterous. It's Just. Too. Hard. ...to believe that they are all the same person.

My memories of each of those big lumps of my girl's time thus far in this world are tangible. So much that I can relive the feelings I had, things I saw, smelled, sensed during those phases. How did she slip from one to the next without fanfare? I look at her one day and realize she has completely morphed.

I don't bemoan the loss of her younger self (though am certain I will one day soon) as I am enjoying her now so much, more so every day as she gets more and more communicative and aware of her world. But I will say that the raging, untouchable passion I felt for her at 18 months, even 2 years old, and before... It's ... Well, it's hard to explain. It's different.

I'm scared because it feels somehow diluted, though my love for her continues to grow every day. I *think* what has happened involves the introduction of a new child 9 months ago, like my passion and attention had to subdivide and the urgency of a newborn had to be addressed and quelled first. When I no longer could focus solely on my daughter, and be completely consumed by her, my infatuation seemed to take a back burner.

Don't get me wrong, my love has remained steadfast and is ever more fierce. But that wonder and amazement had to be dimmed somewhat. I don't know why. I feel guilty, and maybe ashamed. But I don't understand why. I am feeling those flutterings of pride and rapture start to return, but I think I needed to both adjust to having #2, and to this new phase of my daughter.... The one where she says "Cool!" and shuts the door at ballet class so I can't watch, and who is strongly independent and fiercely resolute when she makes up her mind. Not in a bad way... She just knows what she wants and politely accepts nothing less.

In short, she knows enough about the world that I am no longer her everything (and I mean my husband and I). She can challenge us with her behavior occasionally, and she gets this look where we know we're beyond reasoning and the M-O-O-D will be around for a few hours. We are lucky, though, as she is a great kid, polite and respectful of others, but she will challenge us just like any three-year-old.

I feel her slipping through my fingers. We are close as a family and physically affectionate. She loves us and we love her. But I see shades of the future and she's just going to keep going down her own path of growth, i am sure, and that will increasingly be including less of us and more of her peers. We have a few years to go yet, but I see it already.

My little one, how I wish I could wrap you up like a baby bonsai and just preserve you at this age, where you will cuddle me on demand and say funny things like "Mommy, are you fat?" or "Mommy, Daddy is sleeping at a friend's house tonight!" (still need to discuss that one with him).

But then I would miss watching you grow and flourish. I wouldn't be able to answer the questions I have now, like how will you handle public school? Or, will you keep dancing or swimming or playing soccer or riding your bike?

I shouldn't muse. I should live in my existential presence, where every day is something new, and that is terribly fulfilling. I know I love my kids more than anything, hands down. Whether I did things right or felt the right way, no one could ever say, not even me. As long as I can course correct when needed and reinforce when needed, that should be enough, right?

While Version 2.0 steamrolls through his infant days (and I mean that literally - he's become an animal!), my daughter is on her own course correction and is preparing a metamorphosis once again. Maybe this time I will recognize it for what it is and be less surprised when I suddenly realize I've got the new version, complete with updates, and will spend more time just engaging and less time musing.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Have a Little Faith...?

2010-12-09T20:56:00.002-08:00

Version 1.0 has her first Christmas concert next week. The preschool sent home a notice telling us that the kids would all be dressed as angels and would each carry an LED tealight and march in procession at the Catholic church. I felt uneasy with this.

First, we are not Catholic, nor are we committed to any particular faith or denomination. In fact, we do not subscribe to organised religion in any way. That's our choice, for better or worse. While I fully respect anyone's right to choose, I don't want my daughter or son indoctrinated in any direction until they are old enough to understand what they are hearing and can make informed choices one way or the other. I understand we are all influenced by the way we are brought up and can never be completely impartial, but this is the way we have chosen and that's just that (read: I'm not interested in a debate here around whether we should or should not be following any prescribed faith, so save that for somewhere else).

While the preschool is a Montessori, and Maria Montessori was Catholic and built Catholic teachings into her framework for education, it's at the discretion of the teacher as to how much is built into the curriculum or the practices. Our particular school's teacher is indeed Catholic but does not introduce religion into the teachings, other than when she is explaining a Christian (or other) holiday, and to say thanks when they have snack. I have asked for Version 1.0 to be allowed to do something else when anything faith-based is introduced, and the school has been absolutely fine with that.

The point is, my daughter is not even three years old yet. Anything she hears, particularly in a structured environment such as her preschool, she takes as (mind the pun) gospel. She's not old enough to think critically about what she hears and make decisions about it. So, if she comes home praying and talking about Jesus, I'm going to have a hard time helping her unlearn that. Regardless of how you may feel about that, it is our choice not to have our children indoctrinated. This should be completely acceptable. She may choose later in life to adopt a faith and that is her prerogative. But I won't teach her something I don't believe in.

So, the Christmas concert. Yes, it's just Christmas carols and tealights and I am sure it's going to be really damned cute. But upon further investigation, I have learned there will be readings of scripture and some other activities lead by the church. I feel like a fraud staying to hear these words but I also don't want to rob my daughter of the experience to participate in these events. I just can't kick the uneasy feeling I have of total misalignment with what we believe.

I have had friends who have stated that they participated in faith-based activities when young and their own beliefs weren't affected, and I guess that is true, but isn't it kind of wrong to have one foot in each camp? Can I really show up at a church when I feel such discomfort with my daughter listening to all the things that are just not part of our own family culture when she's too young to understand the bigger picture? She's just old enough to absorb everything but the explanations may be too confusing for her if and when she asks.

Am I making a mountain out of a molehill? Blowing up the issue? All I know is it's got my stomach in knots and I need someone to set me straight and suggest an approach. I guess it's all about allowing her to have experiences?

Reach For The Stars

2010-11-20T22:43:00.001-08:00

Version 1.0 had her first ballet class today. It was beyond adorable, and ripped my heart out at the same time. I just cannot deal with her getting older, and more mature, and less dependant, and more extroverted and more experienced, and… oh for chrissake, she’s only 2. What’s wrong with me?

Anyway, today was priceless. She started talking about taking ballet class many weeks ago, before I was aware she even knew what ballet was. I would have to say I was a bit surprised as she’s always been a rok’em-sok’em kind of gal, into soccer and her bike and WWF knee drops onto Daddy’s cheekbone in the middle of the night. I couldn’t picture her in this epitome of feminine.

However, she prevailed, as she does (the child has a one-track mind once she formulates an idea of what.must.be) and I enquired at the local dance studio. Sure enough, amid their largely restricted admission past September, they found a way to include her in their November intake. So, we got registered and started reading all the rules for the school, picked up the correct attire, and waited excitedly for the week and then day and then hour when ballet class started.

We arrived earlier than the teacher today, and of course we were having gale force winds plus more, so we had to wait outside the school in misery for a few minutes, but once we got in, we suited Version 1.0 up in her doll-like ensemble and she looked just like a little toy. And such a big girl at the same time, it took my breath away.

She did really well, for her first time, and skipped and galloped (when she was supposed to be bunny hopping, but at least it resembled a forest creature of sorts), and pointed her toes and plied with the most serious expression on her face as if she was up for her Royal Conservatory examination already.

What is particularly interesting is that she did take a few pit-stops to come over and sit on my lap for a few minutes to recharge her uncertainty batteries before joining back in with enthusiasm. However, all the girls began doing the same and soon it was just the teachers dancing by themselves in front of the mirror. So they closed the doors, and the kids went back to full concentration. What is it about Mommy and Daddy being there that makes them less likely to join in? Logically, it should be the opposite. We should be giving them the confidence to continue in the group, but it seems to have the converse affect.

Anyway, after finishing class and gathering stickers Version 1.0 wanted desperately to stay and watch the teachers dance during their practice sessions. She seems to be right into it, as also evidenced by the 852 times we have watched the newly-discovered Angelina Ballerina and the Youtube video of a preschool class dancing to the Toy Story 3 theme song (her absolute most favourite movie right now… hence the title of this post).

I wonder if kids find their inclinations this early, or if by next ballet class there will be a new order of the day and she will refuse to participate as she did last year with skating? I’d hate to pay the money now if she may not want to continue after the initial toe in the water. I suspect we just wait and see, but damn she’s cute in that tutu and I’d be lying if I said I wouldn’t push for her to stay in.

A House is Not A Home

2010-10-24T22:58:00.001-07:00

I picked up the latest edition of House & Home in the check-out line the other day. Or maybe it was Modern Living, or Expensive Houses You'll Never Have ... I don't know, I can't remember. Anyway, it had lots of nice pictures of beautiful rooms decorated to suite the style du jour. Curiously, they didn't list 'Toys R Us' as one of the style categories raging to the forefront in the lives of the wealthy and stylish.

Too bad. I could use an update.

Last year, we built a significant addition onto our home. Before you decide this makes me sound like I'm oozing money, our home is a half duplex from the disco era and we did it because it was the most cost-effective way to increase our living space - to say my husband is handy is like saying Mother Teresa did a couple of good deeds... He built everything himself and to code.

Anyways, we built this awesome addition in anticipation of Version 2.0 coming along one day (in the last month of the reno while we were living in a trailer in our driveway). We finally had all this space and we were going to find a place for everything, Version 1.0 would have storage places for all her stuff, we'd have a real living room where we could entertain... Yeah, that was a great daydream.

Today, we have toy store chic. There are toys and games and play dough and bloody ride-ons in every damn corner. My fancy bathroom is currently overridden with stuffies, squirty toys, three of today's wardrobe changes and a bench.

We clean up Every. Single. Night.

Its really amazing how this kid can make a mess. I mean she literally swoops through a room and pulls crap from every shelf, plays for a minute then on to something else. By afternoon you can barely walk through my much bigger new living room.

I want my daughter to enjoy herself and I also want her to take responsibility for her mess. We do clean-up time every night complete with a ridiculous song, and she will play along but to initiate it herself just doesn't happen.

Clearly she doesn't know how utopian life can be with those postmodern lines and nary a coloring book lying in the arterial route through the house.

But, really, that's not what I want. I don't want to exist in someone else's ideal of perfect. I'm ok with a bit of clutter and a well-intentioned mess. I just... want a bit of house that can be organized, and represents the guardians that now get steered by those short tyrants.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

What Happened To The Witches?

2010-10-06T20:56:00.001-07:00

I was in the drug store with my daughter the other day and they had a whole assortment of random Halloween paraphernalia on display already. Some was amusing and some was frightening and some was a little bit of both.

Last year, she wanted nothing to do with it. She was freaked out by the scary faces and didn't get the concept of a costume - in fact, she fought me like a demon trying to get it on her... Until she stepped through the whole process and discovered that it ended in a contribution of candy in her little orange bucket. It didn't matter that she didn't get to eat any of it (that's what Mommy and Daddy are here for, as evidenced my Mommy's large size jeans), just the idea of the colorful sweets got her so excited.

We walked around for hours and knocked on every door and she turned to me and said "Mommy, Halloween is FUN!". She was not even two at the time so I can understand her initial hesitation but what a difference a year makes.

This year, she started reading her Halloween books a month early and is already planning her trick or treat route.

And, she chose her costume: Buzz Lightyear. If there is anything my daughter is not, it is girly. She wavered on her decision for not even a moment, bypassed all the frilly tutus and princess fairies and zeroed in on Buzz. Mommy is happy cause it's simple and one piece and will keep her warm throughout the inevitably rainy night. Plus, she looks damn cute in it.

But what the what has our costume selection come to? Call me an old biddy but every costume marked "girl" from say age 4 and up was some kind of sexy version of an old classic. Sexy witch, sexy nurse, sexy Frankenstein. Not kidding! A freaking short skirt, fishnets and heels for size 4! Unreal. I mean, I did my time dressing as a whore vampiress before but I was 23! Not 4! Do parents really buy those for their kids because they think it's ok for a 4-year-old to be sexy? Ick.

I guess on the boys' side the gore and violence emulated in their costumes would be a reasonable contrast but somehow it doesn't seem to quite leave your kid looking so... Pathetic and vulnerable.

When I was four, I wore a ghost costume with red lights for eyes and carried a large battery around under the sheet so my eyes would glow red all night. I suppose I could reintroduce that costume now for my daughter, provided it hugs all her curves in just the right way?

I just threw up a bit in my mouth.

Can we please have the witches and goblins and ghosts and Ronald Reagan back for our little ones? Maybe a dollop of creativity instead of skank? I'd like my kids' friends to say "Oooo!" and not "Ewwww!".

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Regression Testing

2010-09-24T00:18:00.002-07:00

My daughter is awesome. Not only is she super clever, but she's empathetic, happy and - best of all - she has a very mature sense of humour. She loves to make you laugh and will go to great lengths to make sure everyone watches her comedy routines.

Since Version 2.0 came home, she has been quite interested doing all the things she used to do when she was an infant. She spends many hours of her playtime diapering her stuffies (and attempted the cat), or wrapping herself in a blanket while drinking from a bottle.

More interestingly, she has insisted on following in her brother's footsteps when he is being transported or is hanging out with us. Like the time she insisted on being carried in the Baby Bjorn while my husband vacuumed:

Or yesterday when she decided she needed to hang out in the Jolly Jumper. Or today when she sat in the exersaucer for an hour watching her cousin session some vids:

I'm not sure how long this phase will last or if it is just part of the adjustment process to having a new little brother. Nor do I know how I really feel about having two babies at once, but she gets a kick out of it and she makes us laugh. What else really matters?

If she starts wanting to wear diapers again I am drawing the line.

I'm In A Chair

2010-09-16T22:14:00.001-07:00

This post is brought to you by my betrayal of my working self, the one with deadlines and insanity these last few weeks... Or rather months. I sit now, still rocking my infant son on my lap (even though he fell asleep an hour ago) because I'm in a deficit of my children. I leave early, come home late, and have little else than their morning drowsy eyes and evening droopy smiles to carry with me throughout the day.

Heard this story before? A bit of a rerun, no? Man, I've got to get some new material. But before I move on, someone direct me to another working mom with a fresh newborn that I can connect with. Really! I totally want to exchange stories. Am I the only lunatic out there who goes back to work right away? I wish I had the choice but we just don't.

Anyway, yadda yadda I miss my kids right now.

So I'm cuddling and rocking and blogging from my phone for the first time ever. This has promise! Half the reason I'm so behind on my posts has been because I'm too distracted by work while at my computer.

This leads me to Topic 2 tonight - technology and parenting. My family is techie. We love technology (and love to hate it). I work with technology and for me information technologies are substantial enablers.

Contrast our access to information to 30 years ago - the, uh, decade in which I was born. No WAY did we have access to as much information that we have now. Doctors were silos and you were lucky to get a second opinion if you even knew enough to feel you needed one. Parents flew blind, particularly throughout the pregnancy phase, and all those things we take for granted now and consider absolutely imperative (ultrasounds, car seats, prenatal vitamins, etc) were only a twinkle in a midwife's eye back then. Yet somehow we made it through being born and thrived just fine for the most part.

So I wonder now whether our baseline for knowledge actually rivals that of the experts 30 years ago and whether all our self-proclaimed experts have taken on a sense of entitlement because our online communities are so empowering. Further, then, does this entitlement cause everyone to be more brave, or opinionated or even hurtful?

I experienced another online battle a couple of weeks ago and am ashamed I got involved in a moment of weakness and passion. I know better. So many people live for that crap because it embodies the only place and time they can feel like they identify with something and can be passionate and brave without consequence.

I realize this isn't news that people behave this way online but my concern is that we've become so critical and judgmental about issues that are so fragile and so important to get right that we're actually emotionally paralyzing new or experienced moms and dads who have any shade of doubt about these issues.

I kept thinking about this debate for days afterwards as it raged in cyber war and realized how stupid we would sound if we were behaving the same way IRL. We would look like a bunch of stereotypical fighting cats with all the mudslinging underway, and we would have lost credibility for seeming so evangelical.

Much worse, I think: most of these issues are *none of our business*. Who are we to try and influence someone else's choices or situation? What right do we have to marginalize women who haven't gone the same route we did? What service exactly do you think you are providing to new parents other than to help them on to the battlefield in one camp or the other?

Listen, if you feel passionate about something, do something productive or effective to really solve a problem. But for the love of pete, don't hide behind technology to justify your bad behavior.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Absentee Parenting

2010-08-12T21:26:00.001-07:00

I’m an absentee parent these days. For the last few weeks, my life has consisted of airports, cab rides (a significant percentage of which have been frightening), hotel food and single-serving toiletries.

I know this schedule won’t last forever, and may only persist for a few more weeks. I know it is a positive and career/business-building experience and that I am opening doors and building important relationships. I know my kids will not be scarred from my periods of disappearance.

But, oh. My kids.

I yearn for them every minute. I keep looking at pictures of them on my iPhone so I can smile back at them and marvel at how we made such beautiful creatures. I watch videos of Version 1.0 yammering on about her crazy ideas and plans. I watch videos of Version 2.0 gurgling and cooing and melting my frigging heart.

I’ve written before about role reversal and how my husband and I have decided to divvy up household responsibilities. Nothing’s changed much, except we keep adjusting as we go.

When I had my son 3 months ago, I essentially delivered him on Friday and was back to work on Monday, taking calls, writing documents, doing what I could. I never really stopped. I’ll admit the first couple of months were very, very hard for both of us. Version 2.0 was so colicky I would end up crying myself, or yelling out loud to no one in particular. Hubby was stretched to the max as well, and we were living in this periphery to our normal selves, wondering when things were going to get easier.

Well, they did. A bit. We can breathe now. Thanks to formula. Version 2.0 has a voracious appetite and once again, I didn’t make enough to keep him satisfied. Within days of being able to feed him formula to supplement, we noticed a marked difference. We were both at such a level of crazy that it just had to be worth it to get that sanity back. Unfortunately, he is a fussy one when it comes to what’s in his mouth (aren’t all men?) and he soon refused to breast feed anymore.

Toss in there the unfortunate timing of an excellent business opportunity that has me away a lot and breastfeeding doesn’t stand much of a chance. I feel sad about this, and guilty, but I know better. I know the scary level of crazy we had become and I know how badly I do not want to be caught pumping in a public washroom again, or having to deal with breast milk on my suit jacket in front of a client.But mostly, I know my son is fulfilled and healthy, no longer hungry all the time because of my measly supply. I have made my peace and I hope no one gets all lactivist on me again because I just might get physical with my fist. I understand, to those women who have never had a problem, they can’t imagine that low to no supply could ever be real. Well, I assure you, it can. And lo and behold, finally… a few others can relate:

Breastfeeding: No Milk At This Store

A Breastfeeding Guru Who Uses Formula

Crap. That was a bit of a tangent. Where was I? Right. I miss my kids. My healthy, beautiful, thriving kids.

Who have both had formula.

That is all. I’m home now and need to go snuggle.

Also, it’s my anniversary. So, I need to go and… um, snuggle.

Excuse Me While I Kiss This Guy

2010-07-12T22:15:00.001-07:00

Holy schamoley, it’s been awhile. Life is pretty insane right now and my days keep slipping away into a flurry of activity around bedtime, including keeping Version 1.0 in her big girl bed, keeping Version 2.0 from wailing his lungs out (whiskey?) and generally trying not to keel over with fatigue before either of the above two happen.

To stay light-hearted tonight while I am still in a relatively sane and calm frame of mind, I thought I would introduce you to my daughter’s favourite new passtime: singing. Yes, before she would tell us to stop when we sang, and took little interest in music herself. Then, suddenly, she is frigging Maria Von Trapp (her married name) and you are *not* allowed to sing with her. Nope, she’ll stop you cold the first few words in.

The downside to her Star Search-seeking solo tendencies is that she doesn’t get the benefit of hearing the proper words to her favourite songs. As a result, we have some pretty interesting mash-ups and strange renditions of the classics. Without further ado, I present the world of children’s song according to my daughter.

Old Nut-Donnell

Old Nut-Donnell had a farm
E-I-E-I-O
And on his farm, he had a .. What he have? A Chicken! (she actually asks the question out loud)
E-I-E-I-O
With a cluck cluck here and a cluck-cluck here and a cluck-cluck here and a cluck-cluck here and a cluck-cluck here… (she isn’t sure how to get to the transition so the poor animal just keeps making his sound until she gets bored)

Farmer in the Dell (Politically Sensitive 2010 Version)

The farmer in the dell
The farmer in the dell
Hi ho the hair-ee-oh (yes, this part stuck in my head for awhile)
The farmer in the dell.

The farmer takes the wife
The farmer takes the wife
Hi ho the hair-ee-oh
The farmer takes the wife.

The wife takes the wife
The wife takes the wife
Hi ho the hair-ee-oh
The wife takes the wife. (Lucky farmer)

Baa Baa Black Sheep

Baa Baa Black Sheep, any wool?
Yes sir, yes sir, three bags full.
One for the mshfjsdfjkjh (she can never figure out this word so kind of mumble sings it)
And one for the game
One for the little boy who lives in the lane
Baa Baa Black Sheep, any wool?
Yes sir, yes sir, three bags full.

(Baa Baa Black Sheep is best sung naked with your music table. On a treadmill. Don’t ask.)

ABCD

A, B, C, D, E, Up, G….

I’ve Been Working On The Railroad

I’ve been working on the railroad
All the lip long day

I’ve been working on the railroad
Pass the lip long day

Can’t you hear the whistle blowing?
(insert random line that ends with something that rhymes with “morn”)

Can’t you hear the captain shouting,
”Dina blow up horns!”

The More We Get Together

(This one probably requires the most work)

The more we-gether, we-gether, we-gether
The more we-gether, we-gether, happier be
My friends, your friends, we-gether.

Version 1.0 is very conversant for her age, speaks in full sentences and clearly, and understands everything you say to her. So, she learns the words to the songs pretty quickly once she’s had a chance to hear them a few times, but the original renditions are quite a hoot and she seems to hang on to quite a few of the tweaks she thinks make the song better.

Tonight, she heard Queen’s “Somebody to Love” on Glee, and was singing “somebody, somebody, somebody, somebody, somebody” tonight. I am sure it will only be a matter of time before she’s got Bohemian Rhapsody down to the last word. I still don’t know all the lyrics myself.

If you think this is funny, go and check out the Misheard Lyrics archive. I swear I have never laughed so hard for so long.

An Open Letter to My Husband

2010-06-20T21:17:00.001-07:00

Dear Hubby,

Today is Father’s Day. Or is it Fathers’ Day? (Oh, whatever. I can never get it right. Both kind of work… focus…). I woke up bleary-eyed as I am prone to doing these last 7 weeks and remembered that I was going to make you coffee in bed, and have your gift nicely wrapped and a sweet if scribbly card made by our children, just for you. I was going to make you brunch with our friends, laze about with you for awhile and then make a nice dinner, after which, well that is for us to know and the interwebs to speculate.

Instead, you got your coffee when you came downstairs much later (I did make it for you, to my credit… at least there’s that), your gift was stuffed into a Christmas box which Version 1.0 opened and presented to you before you had time to be surprised, your card never materialised and I went for a ride with my friend after brunch, leaving you home by yourself with our two children for a couple of hours. Dinner was mediocre and we haven’t talked in the past hour as you’ve been upstairs with Version 1.0, and I’ve been downstairs with Version 2.0 and on a call for work, and it’s doubtful that we’ll get a chance to, erm…. connect… before I fall asleep beside my breastfeeding child after I’ve done some research for my meetings tomorrow.

So today didn’t quite pan out as I had planned for you, to make you feel like you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me, and the rock in our family of misfits, and the most caring, generous, patient and deliciously evil-humoured man I have ever known. I have been selfish today, but somehow you managed to make me feel like you were happy I was. Our kids have been trying, but you took it in stride, like you do every day. You even remembered to tell your own dad how much you love him.

There is no one better than you. No one by a long shot. We are the most fortunate family to have you, and love you more than any scribbly card could ever say.

Hope you had a good one, Lover.

Lest We Forget

2010-06-02T21:15:00.001-07:00

The other day a new mom asked me when my daughter had gotten her first tooth and how quickly they came in. I was shocked to find I couldn’t remember. Clearly fuzzy on the dates. It didn’t even occur to me that two years later, I may actually have burned out enough brain cells with lack of sleep and too many firing pistons to render my short-term memory completely frigging useless.

When I was a child, my mom kept a baby book for each of us. While I realize she may have skimmed some sections, she did a pretty good job of keeping locks of hair, drawings and paintings, and all her dates relatively correct.

I had always loved going through those books when I was younger and now they would mean even more to me, to compare the development of my own children to see if there were similarities or differences, and whether that neurotic thing my kid does with her eye-rolling and tossed hair is similar to what I did at that age (clearly she gets it from her dad).

I tried. Really hard. I really did. I put all the keepsakes in one (or five) places so I could organise them later. I’ve kept every memorable piece of artwork, every greeting card, all the well wishes, etc. But god help me if I can ever get around to actually writing down the salient memories in an appropriate form. I have three baby books for my daughter. THREE! With nothing in any of them. Thankfully I can use one for my new son, but what will I do with the third? Maybe we’ll get a dog.

I can’t even find my kid’s medical history. The preschool wants proof that her immunisations are up to date. I remember having some slips of paper somewhere that we were handed when we went for shots. I remember some type of passport we were supposed to bring but failed to every single time.

So, anyways, I have been trying to figure out how to do this without causing myself too much anxiety. I want to do my baby books. I really, really do. I suspect it will be fun. But maybe if I could somehow capture things day to day, I could capture the really cool memories and not just milestones like first poop and first swear word (rhymes with “duck”).

First, I figured since I do a pretty good job of keeping my tweets and Facebook status up to date, why not capture all of those in one place? I found Momento, a mobile app that scans all your online social networking accounts (Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, etc.) and amalgamates all your updates per day. So, I can go back to any date in the past and see what I had written. Almost guaranteed, I had updated Facebook with all the major milestones, and more recently Twitter. Still not in a baby-friendly format but at least the data is there, along with amusing anecdotes and rages, so I can one day update a true baby book, when she’s 12 or something.

Then I tried Kidmondo – an online baby book making site. I’ve just signed up tonight so we’ll see if it’s any less cumbersome than the other tools I’ve seen out there, or whether there is a way to quickly update from my phone or somewhere else without going through a big process.You can include rich media and also package it all up for a printed book one day. I like that option.

Anyone else used anything that doesn’t require sitting down for an hour at a time and trying to remember what you wanted to write? Any ideas on what you think your kids will really want to read when they are older, vs. what we think is so awesome?

The Family Tree

2010-05-25T09:31:00.001-07:00

3 weeks. That’s how long our newest family member has been in our lives. Oh, wait… 3.5 weeks. Bloody hell, I look away from the calendar for a minute and 5 days go by. I don’t even remember what month we’re in.

Regroup. Back on topic.

Version 2.0 has wound his way around our hearts in little time, and is becoming more and more alert every day. I love watching him look around, usually with furrowed brow, wondering what the heck he got himself into. If only he really, really knew what a crazy crew he’d joined.

My family has been tremendous since his birth. Everyone has been so generous and chipped in to help in one way or another, spoiling the kids and us, bringing food or just entertaining Version 1.0 while we adjust to two. (Particularly important for her to have all that attention lavished on her because she is clearly a child of my own flesh and blood and thrives on being the centre of everyone’s attention.) We’re going to be forever grateful for having had that assistance during these first few weeks. Now that Grammy and Grampy are heading back home tomorrow, life’s going to get a little weird and crazy again.

For whatever reason (and I don’t think this is particularly strange), I want my children to have a close family. I want them to know their family, have close relationships with their cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents, and be able to call or visit whenever the mood strikes. I lament the fact that Hubby’s parents are so far away that this can’t be reality quite yet, and we hope to have them here soon, but I’m looking for ideas on how to bring them closer when they are still physically far. Any ideas on traditions, routines, tools, techniques for staying connected with far away family? We love them very much and want the kids to know them well.

Are the roots of the family tree important in the development of our kids? Or, is this primarily contingent upon mom and dad and their immediate surroundings? How much interaction with extended family is required for that to be a strong influence in their lives? Can they achieve that same influence through letters, emails, phone calls, etc.? Even with my family only an hour away, it still means we don’t get much face time together.

I’m interested in ideas and thoughts around engaging with family that is far away. Or how to kidnap them so they can’t go home and are forced to stay with you forever.

Settling

2010-05-22T00:01:00.001-07:00

Breathe, breathe, breathe. In for two, out for four. And… we’re good.

Apologies for the brief interruption in sanity that was my last post. I was teetering on the edge of “holy sh$% is this going to be my life for the foreseeable future???” and contemplating what types of substances could opiate me enough to not notice the circumstances until we got past the colic. Luckily for us, Version 2.0 recognized his mommy’s instability, weighed the costs and benefits of continuing the crazy-making behaviour and thought the wiser of it all, ending the sleep strike of a few days’ duration.

Today, and the last couple of days, we have been back to a mostly angelic child with a discernible fussy time in the early evening/late afternoon. This, I can handle (even though I feel somewhat zombie-like due to an unfair bout of insomnia last night). I’m still sleeping on the couch with him at my side, due to a toddler unwilling to sleep in her room while the guest bed is being occupied. It’s just easier to have my own, compact space to sit up, feed the Hoover, and then lie down again to sleep.

So, we’re settling in to something of a routine.

Another way I am settling (and if you are offended by my critical view of zealots and overly passionate do-gooders, skip the rest of this post):

Coming to terms with my medically interventioned delivery.

This is a big, hot topic and I’m going to try and be brief, but doubt my ability to do so. I’ve fought for awhile to try and educate the very passionate individuals out there who (usually with good intentions but lousy forethought) are actively alienating a good portion of the population of the women they profess to be supporting. These are the women who went through childbirth with surprising ease and likely no medication or intervention, and believe now, strongly, that every woman can do this if they just reject the horrible pressures and fear-mongering of the medical profession, plan to give birth under a shady oak with their friends and family chanting beside them. Surgical procedures are unnecessary, drugs harm the baby and mama, and we all live happily ever after because EVERY woman is designed to give birth.

My assertion has always been that as long as mom and baby are healthy and happy, who cares how they got here? Also, not every woman is designed to give birth. Without the tools and procedures available to us, we would see alot more deaths and injury to both mom and babe. That’s the way it is. Let me say it again… we’re not all birthing divas, for various reasons. Some of us need help in order to have a healthy baby. As long as we know that this help is available, we are able to feel more confident and less fearful.

Logically, I know all this. Pragmatically, I know I needed the intervention I had, whether it was the emergency c-section this time, or the epidural last time, and I can reason that out. BUT! GET THIS! I feel disappointed this time. I feel like I’ve somehow not risen to a challenge – that I copped out! REALLY? Why is that? Oh! I know why! Because the zealots have created an environment in our society where anything less than the drug-free, quick hero birth is somehow seen as sub-par. Like we haven’t really done our part. Where does this come from? Videos (I’ve seen some doozies where the distributors insist it’s not meant to alienate anyone, just to celebrate life…. yet right there, in the video, in plain text, it compares and contrasts drug-free and not drug-free births and how the babies have suffered or been unable to ‘perform’ to the optimal degree… um, guilty much? Oh, actually my favorite is the new FB group called “I had a home birth. Not crazy. Not brave. Just educated.” …. seriously? Could you be more condescending? I’ve read and read and read and based on my experience it is just not for me. Don’t call me uneducated for THAT!), discussions, prenatal classes, public health nurses, online communities, EVERYWHERE. You can’t NOT support these approaches without being disregarded as jaded and fearful. Imagine a new to-be mom watching these, reading these, hearing these, and going in to deliver their first child absolutely convinced that anything that is suggested to her is an abomination and she suffers the disappointment and guilt when she requires assistance of some kind or another. You want to try and tell me that that doesn’t instil unnecessary fear of judgement and criticism to a new mom? It’s absolute crap.

And here I am, feeling like I’ve missed something because I had to have surgery. I don’t have a birth story like I did the first time. I don’t know how long my labour would have been, how much I dilated before my water broke, how many pushes it would have taken. I went into labour, it was very quick, and he was out of me within 3 hours, taken surgically. I KNOW it had to happen, there was no choice in the matter (and trust me when I say, there was no choice…. I was NOT blindsided by some bored doctor who just wanted to get home). I should have no remorse.

But guess what? I do. Not only because of the aforementioned emotional and psychological battling, but also because the recovery is so much more intense, and frustrating. It’s unlikely I will have more children, so I won’t have to decide what to do next time, but that also means I will never have another chance to try again at natural childbirth. But why the hell do I care so much?

I’m not alone, I have discovered. In fact, I am in good company. Every other woman I have spoken to about this who has had some type of intervention (and many who have not), feel the same way. They feel guilty, like they have missed something or done something wrong, or possibly put their child in a less optimal situation, when really… they have not. They did everything they should have and the last thing they need to feel is more guilt than we are already going to face for the rest of our lives as parents.

A word of advice to you passionate people who mean well… take a second to think about what your message means to all the women who have had an intervention of some sort (and likely felt ok about it until you posted that last video or article). Take a minute to think about what you are insinuating to the rest of the less ‘fortunate’ population who chose something other than your way. By all means, do what is best for you, enjoy every minute of it. Noone is here to judge you. We’d appreciate it if you would return the favour.

To all the zealots who go a step further and actually get vigilant and abusive in your messages… give your heads a shake. You’re making it worse for the vast majority of the population. It’s none of your business how someone else wants to give birth or raise a child, nor is it for you to judge whether their situation warranted intervention or not. Why don’t you try spending your time supporting the women who need it, and leave those of us who were happy with their end results, happy.

I need to go and cuddle my little man now, and celebrate what I have, no matter how he came out. I guarantee you he’ll never be worse for wear because of it.

There’s a Forest…

2010-05-17T21:19:00.001-07:00

So, we had a baby boy. Two and a half weeks ago. I wanted to post sooner about this beautiful little thing, and my thoughts and musings on all manner of subjects, including life with two, my love expanding, natural childbirth vs. intervention, sleep, being busy, working after birth, etc. I had intended to be light-hearted, swathed in this glowing euphoria not just of a new life but in the surprising ease with which we have entered into this new phase.
I should have posted then, to give fairness to the wonder of my sweet baby boy and how precious he is to us and how lovely our life will be with him in it. Unfortunately, over the last couple of days all the euphoria has been drained and I’m struggling, big time.
Up until a couple of days ago, he slept, ate, slept, ate, slept, ate some more and we had a good little thing going, he and I. He eats alot, more than Version 1.0 did, and is up every couple of hours but it was manageable. Saturday night he did a stint from 1 am – 4:30 am where he wouldn’t settle and I couldn’t get him to sleep. Intermittent crying, etc. I was tired for sure, but it wasn’t hell. Yesterday, 4 hours of it again in the afternoon with everyone trying their hand at getting him to settle, and varying degrees of success. Today, it started at 1 PM and it’s still going strong at 9 PM. I’ve had him out walking in the stroller, bouncing, jiggling, swinging, shushing, feeding… We’ve been rewarded with a few short naps but as soon as he wakes, he’s back to the crying. He won’t take a bottle with much success, rejects a pacifier (a whole pile of zealots are cheering right now), and the swaddle doesn’t seem effective anymore.
I’ve been crying for an hour.
My crying makes me think about other sad things, like how I have been so consumed with keeping my baby fed and happy since his birth that I haven’t been able to spend any quality time with my daughter, and how I am so conflicted and upset that I had a c-section and how mad it makes me that the natural childbirth zealots out there have made us feel less worthy because of this, how I know it’s going to be forever and a day until I get time back with my husband, how frustrated I am that I can’t put 100% into work to try and give our business the push we need (and relieve my partner who has been picking up my slack), etc.
We are the practitioners of guilt, us moms.
I will end this post now before I sink more deeply into frustration and sadness, but will leave with some bright lights that burn behind the fog and I know will pull me out of this soon enough:

My baby boy is gorgeous. He’s as perfect and beautiful as his sister was/is, and we’re thrilled to have him.
I was up and recovering from surgery within hours of being wheeled into my room. Two days after, I was walking around and ready to leave the hospital. Though it has been painful, with infections and such, I’m thrilled that two weeks in, I’m in pretty good shape and only occasionally reminded that I had major abdominal surgery.
My in-laws have been here to share Version 2.0’s early days, and make sure Version 1.0 gets ample attention. We don’t get to see them often, so I am thrilled they are here. My parents have also been amazing and supportive and came to help when Version 2.0 was just days old.
Version 1.0 has been so sweet to her brother, and I love her even more for how mature and loving she has been. Yeah, we had a few days of off behaviour, but it’s better now for the most part and she’s a wonderful, patient, loving girl. She’s started saying “Mommy, I love you SO much” and I want to eat her at that time.
Our friends have been amazing, stocking our freezer full of meals and our cupboard full of wine. I can’t thank them enough for being so kind and helpful.
I had him on Friday, was back to work on Monday, and am thankful I’ve been able to at least keep up some involvement, even if I’m not 100% productive. I have an incredibly understanding partner.
My labour was quick and he was out in three hours (including the c-section).
One day he will be a toddler, and we will be past this crying.

On that hopeful note, I will close now and try to see the forest for the trees. I just wish they would stop falling on my head.
EAVB_MDKEDRWOYU

We Are Complete

2010-04-30T04:09:00.001-07:00

This morning at 1:30 am we gave birth to our newest bundle, a little 8 lb 2 oz baby boy.

I'm currently recovering from the unplanned c-section but everything is otherwise well.

Thrilled to no longer be pregnant and thrilled at our new addition. More to come.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Courage

2010-04-27T01:32:00.001-07:00

I can remember walking into my boss’s office, only months into a new job, to tell him I had screwed up royally on a funding proposal, which would leave us many tens of thousands of dollars short on a project. I remember he sat there staring at his computer screen for nearly a half an hour while I sat opposite him, before he said a word. I was terrified.

I can also remember standing in front of a podium about to address an audience of a few hundred people, to ask them for large sums of money in support of a worthwhile cause, knowing that the cause relied heavily on the success of this event. My heart beat in my throat with unnerving pressure.

I remember the same feeling as I stepped in front of a raging drunk man at a party, as he was about to swing a punch at my good friend who he had mistakenly identified as a swarthy letch who had hit on his girlfriend. Apparently this man had no qualms about hitting a girl and was right prepared to do so to get to my friend.

I had to put my cat down last year after 15 years together. I had to tell a friend of my extreme disappointment in how she had let me down in a big way. I’ve ended relationships.

I gave birth. I’m doing it again. The pain is tremendous and the unknowns weigh heavily. This, and all these situations above, all took courage. Guts. Knowing the consequences (or how they could be), required me to be brave. Many people have been much more brave in situations far more dire. I’ve been lucky, I suppose.

But far and above the one thing that has taken the most courage, and that leaves me shaky and full of breath-holding fear every day, has been becoming a parent. Not the labour, messy newborn stuff where I have to deal with pain or circumstantial crying, fatigue, etc. No, not that at all. That’s nothing. The commitment to this little living thing, and the heart-breaking LOVE I have for my child leaves me absolutely panic-stricken.

I covet my child. I absolutely love her with all of my being. I am not ashamed to say it is more so now than it was when she came out of me, clawing at my insides to make her way into the world. This love has grown strong over time, as I begin to see her personality and we become invested in each other. Now, it’s scary love. The kind of love with an edge that I’ve only come close to in the throes of passion with the man I married. I know he understands this and that it doesn’t mean I love him any less – our love continues to grow and mature in ways that are tremendous, but I’m talking about something that can only develop with a little person you’ve had a hand in creating from your own flesh and blood.

Yes, it is exhilarating. I would stop the world for her, do anything. The feedback I get and the love that is returned is otherworldly. But my god is it frightening to think of *anything* happening to her. Frightening is not the word…. absolutely petrifying, it makes me feel nauseous. If I lost her, I can’t imagine ever coming back. I can’t imagine being able to live. That takes more courage than I’ve ever known, going into every day and night knowing how much I stand to lose, and consciously agreeing to put ones self in that position for basically the rest of your life. I don’t think it gets any easier, I think you fear as much for the loss of your child through your maturity as you do early on.

Of course, I try not to think in these terms and I know I could not have known the extent of this emotion before I had my child. But now I sit, in the wee hours of morning because I can’t sleep due to my man-cold, and my discomfort and my anticipation of the pending birth of Version 2.0, and I can’t help but wonder how there is possibly room in my heart to both hold the love for another child, and to find the courage to become doubly as vulnerable… in a few days’ time. I know it’s the most precious gift and I should remind myself of that daily. I do. I really, really do. In no way do I reflect on this and think “what have I done??” but it sure makes your other moments of back-patting courage seem measly when taken into perspective.

As we anxiously await the arrival of our second little gift, I wonder if I am alone in this neuroses, overanalyzing this state. Is it easier to just not go there or does anyone else feel as … exposed and vulnerable from something they wouldn’t trade for the world?

Carrot Sticks

2010-04-18T22:29:00.001-07:00

So, I’m sitting here totally frigging miserable, partially because I have less than two weeks (hold me) before I give birth to Version 2.0 (but really could be any day now… hyperventilating… paper bag…) but mostly because I realize how long I have left my blog without a post. This reaffirms for me why I’m doing this – for me, for releasing something periodically, and for exercising my writing muscle in the creative arena. That makes me satisfied, but also irritated, because I once again let all of life’s urgencies fill up my time and I left that part that benefits from taking a few minutes to muse to fill up and flow over again, like an untended garden. Interesting, for sure.

So, on to more topical topics.

Ladies and gentlemen, against all odds and with a little fanfare, we have a potty trained child. We hadn’t tried hard, and hadn’t put in much concerted effort but one day Hubby decided that we were not going into another birth with two kids in diapers. Personally, I was blasé on the subject as I didn’t mind diapers that much and Version 1.0 showed no interest whatsoever in her potty. Correction: she was interested in the potty as a special place to store knick-knacks or toy cars or sit her dolls and sometimes the cat. But try to get her to sit for even 30 seconds, and she was out of there like a shot. Way too busy, way too impatient and I wasn’t much interested in forcing the issue. After all, she’s only just turned two and we have lots of time during which we can reasonably expect her to start.

However, Hubby sat her down one day for three hours straight, during which she did a little trickle. Much fanfare ensued, and they went downstairs to celebrate, during which she promptly peed all over the floor. Hubby was so frustrated, and I figure she knows that, and for the rest of the day started trying in earnest. By the end of the night, she was peeing like a rock star and running around the house clothed like one (no bottoms). The next day, he tried pants. One or two wet spots and then we had the pants licked. The next few days (and to some extent, still now) she struggled with #2, getting much anxiety over the thought of having to do it. She tends to hold it in rather than have an accident, which I suppose is more convenient for us, but damn, that girl is stubborn, and will hold for a day or two before she can hold no more. Poor thing gets all shaky and cries when asked to sit and release. But then, out of the blue, will sit down and perform with no problem. So, we’re getting there but it’s to the point where we can take her out without diapers and she will confidently ask to visit the washroom at whatever frequency is required. We’ve been using diapers at night only, and on the occasion of a longer car ride to the city. She’s normally dry when she wakes up or at the end of a diaper day. We’re proud, needless to say.

What has emerged, though, from my observation, is a newfound change in attitude (or shall I say Attitude) from this young one, whereby her skills of ignoring (and I shall not say ignorance) rival only that of her father in deep concentration. She can easily and without guilt tune out Mommy and Daddy when necessary and/or convenient. These spells of inattention are maddening and I have noted a pattern in myself of trying to break through them. In particular, we have a problem at dinner time, but it is no different than any time of trying to motivate this child to do anything other than what fancies her in the moment.

I will waffle between carrots and sticks. Sometimes I negotiate baking cookies in return for peaceful naptime. Other times I will threaten no movie (“moo-bee”) treat later if we don’t get dressed for preschool. We’re back and forth in a perpetual carrot-stick-carrot-stick holding pattern and it makes me crazy. I’m running out of things I can threaten/tempt with and my threats and temptations are becoming increasingly ineffective. I don’t like to raise my voice and have caught myself more often than not reverting to a strong tone these days (blame it partially on being huge and uncomfortable and partially on my inability to find alternatives), which does get results but won’t continue to do so if overused. I am not opposed to speaking firmly to my child (let’s clarify, this does not mean abusively or disrespectfully), and I feel strongly that parents these days are too prone to the fear of not being their child’s best friend vs. demonstrating boundaries, which I feel are sorely needed at this age. So many kids run amuck and are completely out of control because there is a movement to try and use logic and distraction all the time, when a more firm tactic is required. But, I digress. Our child has seen the firm side of our tone on more than one occasion. Sometimes it is appropriate, sometimes it is perhaps more the result of my own fatigue and impatience, but I never professed to be perfect and will continue to waver, but try to make sure the end result is where I need it to be.

So, I’m looking for tactics, suggestions, camaraderie. Is this typical behavioural development for my two-year-old? With Daddy and Mommy, she pushes her boundaries. With teachers, instructors, playgroup leaders, friends and family, she’s a perfect, alluring, engaging little angel. I don’t think this is anything new. I need some new tools though, to be one step ahead and anticipate how to get her sitting down for dinner without needing to be naked and reading a book, or whatever other litany of ridiculous conditions are set upon us for compliance.

Your stories, experiences, gentle nudges in the right direction are appreciate.

And holy heck, y’all … I’m about to do it again!

Mommies in the ‘Hood

2010-03-22T21:15:00.001-07:00

Keeping up with my last post about mommy communities, I’d like to celebrate the fact that I just found out about a website for Vancouver mommies. No idea how I missed this before, but one of my friends and fellow moms pointed out one of their articles showcasing great local mommy blogs. Funny enough, a few of them are blogs I read/lurk on regularly (shout out to Crunchy Carpets, Mother Woman, strocel.com, and all the others who got mentions) and it sure brings our community closer to reality.

I started poking around the site and found some great articles, reviews, and resources for local events, advice and everything else under the sun. I’m impressed. Many more locally driven sites often tend to be quite thin and narrowly focused. I like to find something a bit more beefy.

Then I started wondering how micro can you get before the appeal or value is lost? Do I even qualify as a Vancouver mom if I live in a veritable suburb? Would there be value to my fellow mommies in our community if they had an online resource such as this, but focused solely on our local community? I know there is a thriving demographic up here, but I don’t know that there would be enough to sustain interest in a small, regionally specific online community. I think for now I’ll hang with the “big city” mommies and try to leverage the community there.

I’m very proud that our local Vancouver mommy bloggers have reached such levels of sophistication in the North American ‘scene’. Most of those that I read, I found through reading some of the other well-followed blogs out there, without even knowing I was reading a Vancouver mom. In fact, one of my favourites (Mr. Lady from Whiskey in My Sippy Cup) just moved out of the Vancouver area – who knew we were fortunate enough to be in the presence of such greatness for years? I’m only sad I never got to meet her while she was so close by.

I look forward to learning about more and emerging local mommy bloggers, and will continue to read those that exist with interest and enthusiasm. But would we ever have the chance to come together in person? Would that make this community stronger or would it just be weird, like a bunch of stalkers that finally get to meet their objects of attention in person? Would we get shy with each other or would we finally be satisfied that there is a whole truth to that person you follow every week? Would our inhibitions become real? Would we get awkward?

Personally, I’d love a Vancouver mommy bloggers meet up. While I get alot out of what I read, I’d also love to round out my experience and membership in this community. If I don’t have 100 readers a day, am I even allowed to say I belong? I think I do. I write, the occasional person reads, I follow and comment and feel some type of kinship with the authors.

What do you think? Am I sounding like a stalker or is this like online dating, where eventually meeting in person takes the community to a new level? Or would it fall flat on its face, never to be the same afterwards when the person you envisioned turns out to talk differently or walk differently or just be different in some way than how we imagined? Are we better left to our imaginations, just like so many blind dates should have been?

Mommy Communities – Online and Off

2010-03-18T22:09:00.001-07:00

I’ve been collaborating with a woman I met last year who had been the visionary behind a local group for women who were all moms (and often working professionals) and were looking for a community of their own within which they could seek to engage in dialogue and discussion with each other around topics of interest, issues of interest, events, and projects that they wanted to undertake. The group had evolved into something slightly different after she moved out of town, and we are, together, hoping to restart the group with the original flavour and some new takes on the implementation.

It’s been exciting and interesting to hear how the group has grown where she is now living in the eastern US, and I look forward to meeting some motivated and intelligent women as we kick off the group at the end of this month.

(If you are a mom in the Vancouver area, and are interested in coming out to see what this is all about, please leave me a comment and I’ll contact you directly.)

I’m curious to see what kind of turnout we get, and who becomes engaged with the group. It will be largely participant-driven with sessions facilitated by the group leaders, based on demand from the participants. I used to run a group for youth that followed a similar format – facilitators that brought together resources and speakers and activities and projects based on the interests and desires of the participants – and it was a very successful and rewarding model.

I also participate in a few other communities, online, such as Babycenter Canada where I’ve been able to find excellent sources of information, resources, and perspective from other moms who have either been through it all already, or who were going through it at the same time as me. While the articles and resources provided throughout Babycenter are great, it was the knowledge from “the horses’ mouths”, so to speak, that was the most valuable to me.

I guess this is why person-to-person communities exist and flourish. We have access to bajillions of bajillions of advice and practice documents and articles and texts and whatever else is published on the intertubes, but we know there is always either a bias, or careful advisory literature is often skewed to make sure it is as safe as possible and doesn’t leave the author vulnerable to litigation should things not work out as described.

But when we can ask questions of real people who have been there, or who have experienced things we are experiencing, and there is no reason for those individuals to misrepresent themselves, that honest and personal experience can do wonders for making us feel more comfortable, less alone, more accepted, less fearful than we would be if we didn’t have that camaraderie. Women are extremely good at supporting their peers unconditionally in affairs of the heart and in traditionally women-centric domains such as motherhood.

(We’re also very, very good at alienation, being judgmental and inducing fear, but that’s for another post.)

The other interesting thing about being part of a community is that the value one gets from that community is directly related to how much one contributes. I can lurk on boards and watch dynamic conversation unfold until my eyes turn red, but the moment I engage with the group, and start to get responses or discourse that is more directly related to my own perspective, the more I become invested in that community and my interest in and willingness to participate increases.

I will be interested to watch and see how my online and offline communities reflect or oppose each other. Will we see similar levels of engagement in the offline group? Is it easier to participate if you’re behind a screen, than in front of a group, thinking and speaking in real time? How do we create an environment offline that encourages participation and contribution as much as we get online? How do we keep personalities and all the non-verbal communication from influencing the character of the group?

What are your thoughts on the value (or not) of offline and online communities? Are they strong? Artificial? Is the representation in the groups always skewed? Do they encourage us to be ourselves, or do they force us to be something different? Does everyone find them supportive or are there groups or personalities at risk of being abused by them, or abusing them?

I’m looking forward to my experience as a group leader and facilitator, and encourage feedback to help us grow and provide an a resource that helps moms find tools for development, personally and professionally, through dialogue and exposure to new peers and experts.

Impending Doomcitement

2010-03-07T17:14:00.001-08:00

I had a bi-weekly visit with my doctor on Thursday (yes, we’re down to bi-weekly visits now), and expected another uneventful drive-through dismissal as I don’t have much to complain about (wait! yes I do!… just nothing that the medical professional would cease to roll their eyes heavenward at), and I have typically text-bookish pregnancies.

For the most part, this was the case until he turned to announce I was going for another ultrasound, a bit late this time. Apparently I am measuring significantly below where I “should” be at this point, which didn’t faze me much as I was always “measuring small” last time as well. However, we compared how big I was last time at this stage and I’m 7 cms smaller this time. Huh. Well, he’s not really concerned as it could very well just be the way baby is lying, or I could just be a late popper (like his wife, he explained to me. Come to think of it, I did see her at the store when she was about this far along, and she was indeed tiny, but had certainly caught up in the week before she gave birth).

Anyway, long and short of it, I have to go for an ultrasound tomorrow to ascertain what the dealio is with baby. My doctor explained that most likely it’s nothing, but if they find that it is due to low amniotic fluid vs. small baby who isn’t eating his Wheaties vs. nothing at all, I may be put on – deep breath in! – bedrest. For the remainder of my pregnancy, or until conditions improve. Um, that’s like 8 more weeks, yo.

Besides that, if you are someone who knows me well, the concept of bedrest is pretty much like my kryptonite. I’m an… active and busy person. Not exactly high strung (although perhaps The Hubby would argue this), but just…. busy. Lots going on. Full calendar. No plans to stop/slow down. My people call your people, you know what I’m saying? Bedrest would be something like, um, the dentist. Wait, that may be a bit melodramatic… dentist equates with hell. Bedrest would be a slightly more acceptable version of hell, something akin to purgatory.

I do admit to harbouring these images of a litany of pool boys and french maids and nannies buzzing around me, on salary to my insurance company, rubbing my feet, serving me food and bonbons, bringing me whatever it is that strikes my fancy at the time, and generally making my life lovely for my final weeks of gestational activities. We all know this is a nice fantasy, though, and more than likely I would become excessively frustrated and unable to relax. So, really, is it useful?

The whole bedrest thing both surprised and astounded me. Surprise because when I asked my doctor what may be causing my fluids to be low, if that turns out to be the case, he said “well, you may be too busy”. Busy? Being busy can cause low amniotic fluid? Is that like, a full schedule requires fluid to be executed? Weird. That was certainly news to me. I was also astounded by the suggestion of bedrest because it reminded me of how close we are to being the parents of another child. So far I’ve kind of waved that reality off as a distant future and not really all that … well, real.

So I watched a few TV shows about newborns (man, do they ever pack the airways at a certain time of day), babysat an 8-month-old baby (whoa, babies are a cake walk vs. walking, talking toddler) and started paying closer attention to new moms around and about and HOLY CRAP, Y’ALL, I’m going to be giving birth again soon. 8 weeks max. Well, maybe 9. But STILL. At first, this made me breathe heavily, and not in a way that excites The Hubby. More like paper bag heavy. Then my chest got painful. Then my good friend who just recently had a new baby said “Dude, it’s hell. Two is hell. Prepare yourself.” That helped. Doom.

But also, concurrently, I became enamoured by the tiny, fragile newborns I was noticing everywhere. Like little dolls. I admit to never having been excited by another go at the newborn phase – the crying and colic and not sleeping and 24/7 bleariness, the mood swings and OMG nothing in return. But now, while I recognise those will still be distinct realities, I know I will have Version 1.0 to distract me and remind me of what we have to look forward to – what this child will grow into. We’ll be a family. Version 1.0 will have a sibling (whether or not she likes the idea to begin with). I think I’m even a bit excited.

So here I sit, wondering and waiting, with perhaps a bit of fear but vastly more excitement, and knowing I have no control over the little one’s entrance into the world. It could be sooner than we expected. Or, we could have the whole remaining time to adjust to expecting our second. Regardless, it’s going to go quickly, as this whole pregnancy has. I’m ready-ish, but holy crap. And woohoo!

Let’s just hope (for everyone’s sake and health) I don’t end up a miserable, laid-up wretch for the remainder of the term.

What Makes Me Happy…

2010-03-01T22:16:00.001-08:00

Life has been nutty around here lately. I literally have not gotten a moment to rest, due to lots of travel, birthday parties, out of towners (freaking foreigners!), Olympics, my newfound love for yoga (which I haven’t been able to attend for a few weeks), and generally waddling around feeling sorry for myself and my man-cold.

Last week I was away for the longest time yet – four days/three nights. Though I was very busy the entire time, which helped me not focus on missing my little girl, once I was en route to get home I couldn’t get there fast enough. Once I did get home, it was the strangest reunion. Version 1.0 approached me in the front entrance, tentatively, as if she wasn’t sure who I was, then reached out and touched my face and said “Mommy?”. I nearly died of a broken heart. We were back to normal in a few minutes, but those first moments together were so strange, like she had somehow grown up again while I was away. I seriously don’t know how people do it, those who have to travel extensively for work with young children. But, I digress.

I was speaking to a client today who works in an organisation that has undergone a tremendous and tragic change in the last 6-12 months, resulting in mass layoffs and reorganisations. Mostly everyone there is feeling quite down and fearful, as is to be expected. However, this gentleman (who is in no less a secure position than the others) said to me today, when I asked how things were, “You know? I’m actually very good. I just am. Nothing has changed, but I feel great and am choosing to just be fine.” I was inspired and thrilled to hear someone choosing to be so positive. He’s not even really a traditionally optimistic or happy-go-lucky sort, so I was that much more impressed with his candour.

Nora from Non-Linear Girl wrote a lovely little post recently called “Happy Days Are Here Again”, in which she lists succinctly some things that are currently making her smile. Nothing world-peace-inducing or requiring much formal deep thought, just a sweet reflection on the nice things in life at this very point.

I figure we’ve got lots of not nice going on around us all the time, and the thought of taking a few minutes to reflect on what is currently making me smile would be like holding a nice cup of tea (or vodka) before bed, and drifting off to a peaceful slumber (without little feet burrowing into my spine).

Without further ado (and I hope you try this too), my happy list.

Currently what’s making me smile:

Version 1.0, completely, in general and specifically her newfound love of telling me how much she misses me when I go away, and that she “likes me alot”.
Also, the fact that I can put her hair in ponytails every now and then when she allows it.
Version 2.0 kicking like a crazy little alien 24/7, and the brief moments he/she lets me rest a little bit.
Finally getting all my papers organised after months and months of piling up in unorganized chaos on my desk. Unfortunately, one of the unopened letters included Hubby’s new bank card from, uh, last summer, but that’s thankfully all been dealt with already.
My hair is growing out and letting me feel a bit more feminine in a time of much needed contributions to my external self-worth (read: big fat hog growing by the day).
Cupcakes. Altogether too many of them in a short period of time, but hey.
An unopened Lego Star Wars set that is waiting to be built. So it belongs to the Hubby, but I am certain I can convince him to let me help.
A friend has let me borrow Seasons 1-3 of Lost to watch in my upcoming burrowing phase as the impending birth gets closer.
GOLD. I didn’t expect to get caught up in the Olympics craziness, but seeing that I live right smack dab in the middle of it all, it was hard to avoid and now I am reminded of my tremendous pride in my country for its personality, friendliness and success. As I drove home on Thursday night, intent on seeing my child and husband, I ended up right smack in downtown Vancouver in the final minutes of the women’s gold hockey game. The minute it ended, the streets erupted in cheers all around me. There wasn’t another car in sight, but I was surrounded by ecstatic pedestrians, all cheering for the same reason. My favourite moment of the Games.
Spring is in the air. Always a time for renewal, but the weather has been unusually warm, and I’m feeling change afoot.
Family. We spent yesterday at my parents’ house with my immediate family, watching the cousins play together and cheering together, fuelled by national pride. I love the comfort of our family, and that our husbands feel the same.
Foodie blogs. Perhaps the greatest thing to emerge from the series of tubes which we know as The Interwebs. The perspectives and experiments and beautiful photography give me the courage to try new and delicious things (provided I am actually at home to try them).
Great customer service in a great hotel. The hotel I stay at when I am away treats me like royalty, has big, deep bathtubs and spa treats and chocolate and nice towels and always remembers what I like. Makes being away that much more manageable.
Meeting new people. I’ve been making a point of getting introductions to new acquaintances, business contacts, friends, anyone. I’m so energized by new stories and experiences and look forward to connecting them all together.

What’s on your list? Is it harder to come up with a happy list than a gripe list? Once you get started, I prefer to think not.

Olympic Parenting

2010-02-16T21:07:00.001-08:00

Our life is a little topsy turvy right now. Since Friday, everything has turned to high performance sports, national pride and parties. Parties everywhere. Which I can’t attend (or don’t have the energy to attend). On top of travelling frequently this month, I’m participating in my own Olympic event, trying to keep all of the balls in the air.

In the spirit of this nationally syndicated event, I would like to introduce my version of the Olympics, mommy style. The following list includes all sanctioned events by the international governing body. As this event is still in its infancy (pardon the pun), the organising committee welcomes proposals for the addition of new events.

Rhythmic Cleaning (Long Program): In this event, competitors endeavour to clear the competition area of clutter and debris (may include week-long hidden bottles of milk, ground-in chocolate and packages of tiny stickers) while remaining cheerful and light-hearted. Competitors are judged based on speed, use of floor space, and creative interpretation.

Short-Track Store Sprint: This event encompasses a number of challenging aspects, including a high-speed toddler dash, moving hazards and human obstacles. Competitors are equipped with high-speed shopping carts and must negotiate narrow race lanes. Judging is based on avoidance of hazards, efficient use of available energy and time to reach the finish (stray toddler).

Combined Toddler Aerials: This event brings together the precision required for the toddler dinner toss and the aerobic fitness of the playground jungle gym chase. Competitors demonstrate agility, grace and speed in execution, using air speed and velocity to gain distance and height. Penalties are assessed for touching the ground or breaking form.

Colic Marathon: One of the most challenging of endurance events, this sport requires competitors to battle exhaustion and mental fatigue while completing circuits around feeding stations, rest stops and change tables. Competitors place based on sequential finish, which is often extended based on penalties for foul language, crossed eyes and evidence of performance-enhancing substances such as caffeine or Nyquil.

Bedtime-Cross: A battle of both physical and mental acuity, with multiple competitors on the field simultaneously, attempting to intimidate and overpower the competition. A high-contact sport, this event often results in sustained injuries and bruised egos. The competitors advance through a tournament-style ranking, until one competitor emerges victorious and can demonstrate repeated success in all aspects of the event. Athletes often benefit from cross-training with competitors within the Combined Toddler Aerials event.

We have been practicing our skills here for competition and I must say, we’re probably not in top performance form yet. We may need to wait, oh, another 11 weeks (ack!) for immersive re-training in the Colic Marathon. It will be challenging but surely rewarding, although I’m not sure it’s really a sport I will ever exceed in. I may just fall asleep at the medals ceremony and miss my moment of glory.

Have an event to add for consideration? Feel free to submit below. Happy Olympics, everyone!

On Money, Roles and Our Ingrained Ideas

2010-02-01T17:28:00.001-08:00

According to this article, for 96% of the population with kids under 18, the typical life story goes something like this:

One or both parents work.
Mom gets knocked up.
Mom takes requisite time off work (6 weeks – 1 year, depending on which ~~socialist regime~~ country you live in).
Mom makes choice to either stay home and take care of kids indefinitely (30%) or go back to work (66%), putting kids in care.
Dad continues as primary wage-earner, albeit with a little less sleep.
Cycle continues with subsequent children until both parents emerge victorious and slowly get their life back as kids ~~are shipped off to boarding school~~ grow older and more independent.

For 4% of the population, like our family, we diverge around Steps 3-4 and do a complete role reversal with Daddy staying home and Mommy going back to work full time. While we are blessed with the option of a year of maternity leave (albeit at a much reduced wage) in Canada, which is distributable to either parent, some of us aren’t in a position to qualify.

We had the perfect storm. I made the higher wage by a substantial amount, while hubby’s work had been on a steady decline over the previous year before we had Version 1.0. In addition, I had been self employed for six months before we had our child, which meant that although I had worked enough hours over the past 12 months to qualify for insurance, they calculate how much you get based on the previous six months. Though I had been working, it had not been insurable earnings as I was self-employed. So basically we ended up with no social security net, no parental leave or employment assistance income. We had no choice but for me to go back to work after my daughter was seven weeks old. In Canada, this is pretty much unheard of.

Because it is still most likely that the father is the primary wage-earner in the household, and because we all have pretty much guaranteed jobs to come back to after a year off, it’s usually the mom that takes the time off. Makes sense, now that I know about the physical side effects of pregnancy and newborns. However, a loving and dedicated father can do just a well caring for baby as a mommy can. But is it that simple? I can tell you, emphatically, “No”.

The first few months were damn hard. To add to the mix, we had started a new business a month before my daughter was born, and I was eager and anxious to dive in and contribute. I’m an entrepreneur by heart and the pull was strong, as was the desire to not lose my professional “edge” (which has arguably dwindled ALOT since my child ripped most of my functioning intellectual prowess out of my head). I was visiting client sites with a breast pump and bags for milk. I had to pump in public washrooms whenever I got the chance. I am sure, to the others visiting the washroom while I pumped away in a stall, that the rhythmic squeaking coming from a few feet away was at best a curious noise and at worst a horrific half-time show which they did not want to be privy to.

As a result, of course, my milk supply dwindled and waned and my daughter did not thrive like she should, so we were forced to revert to formula to give her the nourishment she needed. She was already being supplemented as my supply was meagre, but I didn’t know enough then to be able to adjust and do nights and mornings. The fact that we had to use formula was enough stress and judgment to have made me throw in the towel, but I digress.

Additionally, the emotions and hormones and physical side effects of birth had not fully departed and I struggled a lot with feelings of guilt and sadness that I was missing all the little moments of my child’s development when I had to be away for a day or, worse, overnight. I was too overwhelmed with continued night feedings and exhausted from interrupted sleep to get back into any regular exercise routine and if I was working at home, I felt guilty for taking any time off to go for a walk or play with my daughter. She had colic and cried constantly for the first four months. She had reflux and didn’t gain enough weight, blah blah blah.

While things have definitely calmed now and we have hit our routine somewhat, I do believe it’s taken us a couple of years to get more comfortable. I still cry when I hear “Mommy COME HOME!” on the phone when I’m away for a night, and I still feel exhausted every day as we wrestle our little octopus out of bed with us. Even with a toddler, it’s HARD. And EXHAUSTING. We’re getting there. But then, in a few months, we have to start again. This time I will have little to no time off. We can’t afford it. We’re right in the thick of project work with my clients and my team is depending on me. I have wonderful coworkers and I work from home primarily, but no one can take away the physical stuff you have to get through, the breast feeding at night, the UGH fatigue and sleeplessness, and the sense of responsibility to this little newborn.

My husband – best father ever. Loving, caring, responsible, active, laid back and sweet. No issues there. But I do believe there is just something different between mommy and daddy in terms of ties to a newborn baby - that panicky sense of urgency, that desire to soothe and nurture, etc. It’s hard to explain and not something we choose, just something that comes along with the physical attachment at birth.

When I decided to be a working mom, friends and family both questioned me and looked at me funny. They shook their heads and didn’t believe that this was our only choice. That we somehow hadn’t done our math correctly and that EVERYONE has the option to stay home and WHY would you want to work when you could sit around eating bonbons for a year? SURELY it’s better for Daddy to work while Mommy doesn’t. It was so frustrating to feel like somehow we’d made a choice that was leading to more stress, when really we were like any other family who has to choose one parent working and one staying home because economically it made more sense than daycare when you weighed the financial options, and we really really both felt strongly about having our kids home with parents, just as my parents did. We just flipped the roles. Not everyone approved. In fact, many didn’t and still don’t understand. As if we’re trying to prove something to the world.

What struck me most is how much pressure there is on young women to get educated, get a good job, make good money, be independent, be powerful, ad nauseum. But when it came time to have kids, if they had done all this, they are expected to drop all of that and take the year off, care for the children and why the heck wouldn’t you?

Oh, the career will always be there.
There will always be work.
You can get maternity leave benefits.
Your children need you.
It’s not the right thing.

Actually, it was the right thing for us, as hard as it has been. And no, I would not have had the opportunities I have had if I hadn’t stayed working. Nor would we have been financially viable. I didn’t have benefits. I work. I am a professional. My husband wanted to stay home. He preferred it. Get over it!

Is it any easier for dads to keep working after their child is born? Do dads still feel that pull to be with their children? I don’t know. Is there a difference for one parent or the other? Or do dads just expect it is their role to keep working and adjust to that accordingly? I don’t know. I’ve had the privilege of working mostly from home, where I can be around my kid as much as possible. This is not all that easy and I have had to acquire an external office so I can actually get things done, and sound semi professional on my calls. But I am privileged, and all things considered, very happy.

I just wish everyone could see the full story, could consider a new perspective. As our economy continues to re-invent itself, we may be increasingly forced to make our family decisions like we do our business decisions, considering facts and outcomes without emotion or a tie to tradition. I can’t say I’ve met too many other couples in our scenario but would love to hear other experiences and feel a little less like the social anomaly.

Prickly, Prickly Times

2010-01-20T17:03:00.001-08:00

I read a post today by EarnestGirl at the Yummy Mummy Club. She spoke of her reaction to tragic events since being pregnant and over the past decade (which, as she correctly notes, has been rife with tragedy and trauma on the global scene). She described her reaction to the horror and the despair as “falling in a well”. I thought, how apt.

I’ve always been a relatively aware individual and try hard to be sensitive to the world around me, to others’ needs (whether overtly described or needing careful discovery) and to the emotional climate surrounding me at any given time. I feel deeply for people who experience pain, which I believe is relative to experience and situation and just as real for each individual, and have always wanted to help in any way I can. I’m no Mother Teresa, just average compassionate, but there are things you just can’t ignore.

Since I have had my child, however, the awareness of tragedy seems to strike a deeper chord, and I feel hurt for mothers, families who have lost their own, lovers who lose their only reason to live. Whereas before, I related to their hurt and accepted the severity, but I didn’t *feel* it, like I do now. Please understand I don’t pretend to ever know what it’s like to endure that magnitude of pain, but what I mean to say is that it’s almost unbearable to just hear about it now. It makes me realize just how otherworldly painful it might be to experience horrific destruction, loss of life, loss of home, all of it. We’re so…. protected. For the most part.

But what made this empathy become so much more amplified since I gave birth? Am I actually able to relate on some other level, knowing now what I stand to lose, or is it hormones, fatigue, or all the other things that come along with life after birth? Now that I am pregnant again, it seems to be so much stronger, yet again. I’m contemplating reading a book right now that I know will be fantastically written, and that I will be pleased to have experienced, but will break my heart with such a tragic story. I almost can’t bear the thought of that kind of sadness now. I hate this because I feel I can no longer be compassionate, that I avoid the sad parts of life, and don’t read the horrific stories, am overwhelmed by the news of catastrophes and generally avoid anything that is not uplifting. But that is not life. That is not real. Does it get easier to rejoin the real world at some point? Or am I destined to close myself into a happy bubble and lose the ability to build my perspective and respect for those who have endured and prevailed through horrific times?

What funny beings we really are. Always morphing and changing… I’d like to stop and rest for awhile.

The Great Interview Experiment

2010-01-17T09:13:00.001-08:00

A month or two ago, I came across a posting by one of my favourite mommy bloggers, who had participated in Neil Kramer’s Great Interview Experiment. The gist of it is, a random population of bloggers who elect to participate get paired up in random order and interview each other, posting the results of their interviews on their own blogs, and Neil curates a master list on his.

I had the privilege of interviewing Julie from He Who Laughs Last Didn’t Get It. Below is the script from our interview together. Enjoy! It’s a great concept and hopefully introduces you to some new talent. Participate yourself if you have a blog.

Interview with Julie

S: You started writing early last year. Has your focus evolved since then or did you start with a pretty clear idea of what you wanted to share or achieve?

J: I don’t really think my focus has changed since I started blogging. Because my friends were always telling me that I had some good funny stories to tell about being suddenly shoved into the world of dating at the ripe old age of 33…I felt like blogging was my first step. I do have lots of “bad date” stories to share, but what I often find is that the lessons I learn from these horrible experiences are what is actually worth sharing. And it is through these experiences that I learned so much about myself.

The toughest lesson I learned last year as a newby to the blogging community is that the people I surrounded myself with weren’t always the people I should have surrounded myself with. I realized that I didn’t like who I was becoming while I was hanging around some particular friends…and I learned it through my blogging. It wasn’t until after I went back and read a lot of my older posts that I put two and two together that maybe some of my bad experiences were bad experiences because of the company I was keeping…

It was this “realization” that made me clean my “friendship house” at the end of last year and start fresh. This may make my life boring and not blogable anymore, but I sure do feel better internally since I have cleaned house.

You mention in your profile a number of internal conflicts that challenge you regularly. Has writing helped you work through some of those?

I absolutely use my blog as a form of therapy! I used to write things in my journal, but I am so anal in the way things look that I would be on day seven or eight of my new journal and have to bag it and start a new one. Why you might ask? For stupid reasons usually. Usually it’s things like, I didn’t like my handwriting that day or I got off on a tangent and the paragraph I was writing ended up being too long. And because I like the way things “look” I couldn’t cross it out and start over…so hand written journaling was making me more crazy than nothing at all. Hence one of the reasons why I started the blog…editing was much easier.

Now as I look back, I have a good feel for where I was, where I am and where I am going and it all looks pretty and neat.

But what I am really finding out is that just because I come to certain conclusions about my behavior or things I am doing doesn’t necessarily mean I’m going to change my ways. I usually find that when I write, it’s the “good, logical person” in me putting my thoughts down on the paper. But it’s the “fun, go getter that doesn’t really care what the consequences are person” that lives in my brain day to day, and sometimes those two don’t get along and usually the fun (aka…bad stuff) is a lot easier to do than the good/right things.

You provide some pretty detailed recaps of current programming. My question is... Reality shows: entertaining train wrecks or pretty accurate commentary on current societal values?

The sad part is, I think they are both…pretty accurate commentary on our current societal values and entertaining train wrecks. I have said many times that we, as a society have no moral compass by which to live life and honestly this freaks me out. I have two little boys that are growing up in this world where it is currently ok to date 25 women at the same time, or propose to one woman only to break her heart, dump her and ask another woman out all in the same evening…all because it is “good” tv. And we as a(society) are ok with that because we just want the opportunity to bitch and moan and complain when these “reality stars” mess up in real life. We want the opportunity to say “I told you so” under our breaths…

As a single woman, the “reality” of reality television also frustrates me, why you may ask? Because shows like the Bachelor dupe us into thinking that all romances should be fairy tale helicopter rides, dinners under the stars, magazine shoots, and private concerts. It’s not real, but in the real world “reality” is boring and who would watch boring. The problem is… a lot of people can’t differentiate between the two. So in order to make up for the “boringness” of reality we settle for going to a fun club on dates and hanging with a group of people, never really getting the opportunity to know our dates and whether or not we want to get to know them more. So in a sense we “settle” early on… There is no courtship or romance anymore!

A topic that has been discussed at length recently revolves around the support that women, in particular, find in their online communities. Is this real? Does it rival real world friendship? Have you had occasion to test the strength of these online community relationships?

I have only been blogging since June of last year and seriously blogging since about November so I am in no way an expert in the “support” that women get in the blogging community. But I will say that slowly but surely I have been making some friends that I never thought I would. It has been fun to connect with women that don’t even know me who support me through the day to day.

But most important it’s just good to realize, and I mean really realize that I am not crazy! The things I am feeling and talking about in my blogs are real things that other women feel and work through every day too.

I personally have not yet had the opportunity to “test” the strength of these communities. But there is one blogger whom I follow that is going through something in her personal life and she relies heavily on her blogging community for support. Every day I can see that the support she is getting is really helping her cope with her situation. It makes me smile!

Part b) to that previous question. Does blogging help you develop credibility in that community or are bloggers a dime a dozen?

I do think that bloggers are a dime a dozen and it is tough to gain credibility. But what I have also found is that if you are just honest with who you are and what you write about people will like you and follow you and value your opinions. I have read a million (ok, maybe not a million, but definitely hundreds) of blogs. And what I have found is that if your blog becomes sort of a narrative of your day to day life it can become boring and mundane and that is where you lose your credibility. But if you write in a “general” way and add your own personal stories and events, it gives you the credibility you need to be a blogger that everyone wants to read.

I try to think of things that happen to me in my world of dating as a single mom in my thirties and think about how it might affect everyone and then write about it. If I went on and on and on about the guy that insisted on giving me foot massages even though I told him over and over again that I didn’t like them you might get bored because perhaps that scenario hasn’t happened to you (count your lucky stars) but the fact that I actually learned a lesson from it and shared that lesson with everyone who probably knows someone that has gone through something like I did…that is where you gain and create your credibility from.

You're a single mom. I can only imagine this means you are forced to prioritize heavily. Where does your writing fall on that priority list and how do you motivate yourself to post regularly?

Writing falls towards the top of my priority list…God, family, friends, writing…everything else gets done when I get a chance. Writing has become a form of therapy for me that I NEED in my everyday life. For some it’s exercise or meditation, for me it’s writing. I don’t feel complete unless I write something every day.

Sure there are days when I get bogged down or can’t think of things to write about, but those are the days when I focus on things like organizing my thoughts for my book or researching things for my book…oh…by the way…did I tell you I am in the process of writing a book? I am devoting 2010 to really delving into it. I took 2009 to focus on my personal life (aka…partied way too much). That wasn’t working for me so I have adopted the motto: 2010 where the new going out is staying in. This way I can focus more on my writing and really get serious about it. I find when I focus more on my writing it puts more focus on me as a person and this is where my real growth comes. Sorry…I’m WAAAAAAYYYY off topic now. What was the question again?

Bonus question: If you were a judge on The Bachelor, how would you determine who is successful? Should America vote? :)

I absolutely DO NOT think America should have a say whatsoever in who the Bachelor/Bachelorette chooses. It’s bad enough that the production staff has a say…am I right people? Why else would Michelle have made it to at least the third week? I predicted she gets booted the third or fourth week. They always keep the psycho on long enough to boost ratings! But I digress yet again…

Back on topic. The way I look at it…my friends can’t seem to pick good men for me. As I think this story is a great example of why I think that. Don’t get me wrong. I love my friends and they love me, but sometimes I just have to wonder. I guess I shouldn’t complain about this either. Since adopting my new motto of staying in in 2010, two of my friends have already called me about setting me up on blind dates. And because I am a cool girl I said yes…I will keep you posted on how they turn out. Last tangent…I promise, back on track.

I think determining success when it comes to the Bachelor/Bachelorette is a battle that will never be won. What is success when it comes to Hollywood and dating anyway? I mean if Susan Sarandon and Tim Robins can’t make it then who can. It doesn’t matter what people think success is in a relationship, there will always be people out there that say, “I told you it wouldn’t work out”….even if they make it over the twenty year mark. I don’t know…there are just so many cynics out there. I think anyone that can manage to stay out of the gossip columns has a pretty good chance…Hugh Jackson and his wife, and Dr. McDreamy and his wife are couples that I think are in it for the long haul and not for the attention.

The Key to the City (or Community)

2010-01-13T22:16:00.001-08:00

I’ve been reading a lot of mommy bloggers lately (for a wonderful roundup of great Canadian material, check out the comments in the latest post on the Bad Moms Club). I participated in The Great Interview Experiment this year, initiated by Neil Kramer of Citizen of the Month. The basis is, you comment on his posting, he hooks you up with the previous commenter and you interview them, post the responses on your blog, and he does on his, and everyone gets to learn about someone new. I interviewed a lovely woman who writes He Who Laughs Last Didn’t Get It and am anxiously awaiting the interviewer who will contact me.

Mr.Lady posted today about taking a new approach to her social (online) community and encouraging her world to delurk, and engage in a more meaningful way with the folks they follow, and redirect attention to the less complacent. I also read a more marketing-focused approach to personal brand development, aimed at bloggers and social media enthusiasts, with the sole intent of promoting one’s brand. Which… I get, sure. But why do you care? Do you care because you want the recognition, or because you feel you’ve got something valuable to add, to help others with, or to put some framework around a new way of thinking?

I believe very strongly that one’s personal brand can *only* be developed when one adds value to discourse. I started becoming involved in the mommy blogging community because I related to many of the writers I read, and it’s a big part of my life, yo. What I discovered is that this community is rife with amazing, amazing writers. Not just writing on strategies for how to deal with temper tantrums or sleeping issues (which, btw, are golden), but writing on politics, current trends, micro issues and emotions. The best part is that it’s random. Every day is random. Some days I get insight through these beautiful stories, other days I am laughing my ass off at the sarcastic wit. And every day, little by little, I become more engaged and seek out new writers, who educate me in any number of topics. So, did any one single writer deliver all my value at once? No, not really, but they pieced together a community that I *so* benefit from.

What can I add back? Well, that is the humbling question, is it not? I had a little dialogue with Mr. Lady on this very subject just a few minutes ago, and she made some fine points about how we engage, how we emerge as members. I didn’t come out guns ablazing, and probably will never do that. Although I’m an outgoing and considerably direct individual, I very much believe we need to earn our place. Not through statistics and bulk following, but through the delivery of poignant, relevant and entertaining content, suited to the audience.

I don’t know who the heck reads this blog (other than those brave commenters), and I hope those who do get something out of it, whether it’s reassurance, alignment, or just a good chuckle. I’d love to one day be in the ranks of those who are awarded the votes of the masses, but only because I will know that means the general population is getting something from my work. In the meantime, this blog is as much for me as it is for the reader. It’s giving me practice flexing my writing muscle, synthesizing some thoughts and working through issues that might be plaguing me. I revel in the dialogue of many when I am trying to solve a problem, and encourage dialogue among others to do the same (see a future post on my upcoming venture with a lovely and inspirational woman to do just that for women in my physical community).

So how do I get the key to the community, so to speak? How do I become recognised as a contributing member? By giving others something they need or want, or can relate to. I welcome your suggestions on topics of interest that you would like to see dialogue around. I encourage your feedback on what you like or don’t like in any social media environment.

Is the concept of a personal brand only relevant when there is a business transaction to be had? Methinks no. We encourage it in our company, but it stretches beyond what you do to bring home the bacon. I’m realizing more and more that I can’t (or shouldn’t) separate the two. I will choose my forums, but I am a public entity. I am mom, writer, professional, friend, and tired.

Hit me with your thoughts on what value you get out of your online community. Is it purely social for you? Do you strive for it to be more? Why? Why not?

Potty (Mouth) Training

2010-01-11T21:14:00.001-08:00

I’ll be the first to admit that neither my husband nor I has ever been accused of ladylike behaviour. In fact, between the two of us I suspect he is the more ladylike (which is saying something… he racked up the most penalty minutes on his hockey team and spends most of his time watching football and hockey… well, and Ghost Whisperer, but that’s just connecting with his sensitive, 90’s kind-of-guy side). I can remember showing up to my first day on the job as a new co-op student and laying out an f-bomb to my new boss within a few hours. I generally control myself in front of clients to give the impression of being professional, but most people know my truth… I curse like a trucker.

This may be the single most difficult habit we’ve had to try and lose since we had a kid. We’ve been fortunate that she hasn’t seemed to pay much attention until recently. However, she laid out an f-bomb the other day, just to see what it did. We looked at each other in shock and tried not to react. Last night, Hubby slipped with an s-bomb which she reacted to with a “shhh…” and Hubby followed with a “-ooooot”. But she’s no fool. She looked slyly at Hubby and grinned her little “I’m older and wiser in my head than you will ever know” look and I am sure has stored that one in the memory banks for the next time we’re out with my parents (who are routinely horrified by my liberal use of suggestive and uncouth language and are probably quite shocked that Version 1.0 hasn’t become fluent in Trucker yet).

Our friends implemented a Swear Jar a couple of years ago when their little guy was starting to talk. I used to put regular deposits in there, proactively, likely funding their house renovations or something. Sadly I don’t think this tactic will work at our house, since we’re essentially, well, paying ourselves for swearing. My kid is way too quick to let anything past her and the minute she realizes she will get a reaction, you can guarantee that she’ll want to watch “f***ing Max and Ruby” every morning, or that she will refuse to clean up her “sh*t” at bedtime.

Gah! How am I supposed to give up my favourite expression of frustration, surprise or reaction to a stubbed toe? It just won’t feel the same to say “Oh BOTHER!”. I need the exclamatory equivalent of a charlie horse to balance out the offending occurrence.

Help. I’m not bound to be any Sister Mary Margaret anytime soon, but I definitely want to delay my child’s use of “trash” talking until she’s at least 6 (is that the generally accepted age for swearing these days?). I need reform.

In the Name of the Kids

2010-01-07T23:09:00.001-08:00

Moms - did you ever change your name to that of your spouse , or vice versa (assuming some matrimonial activity took place), to make it easier for the kids? Was it hard? Was it no biggie?

I didn’t. I couldn’t do it. It was too much of a departure of myself, and my identity. Not that I am self-congratulating or think I’m *all that* but it’s just me. I am her, she is me, that’s the way it is. It felt like taking on a whole new name was just a weird, logistical nightmare, and that it would make me totally feel like a stranger in another body.

Maybe too dramatic, I know, but it really screwed with my head, this idea of being called something other than what I had for the whole first 32 years of my life. Not to mention that I was starting to develop a personal and professional brand – or trying to – and all the logistical crap that would need to be undertaken for this exercise.

But most importantly, I just couldn’t work out in my head why in the heck I would even bother. It certainly didn’t make me feel any closer to my husband. In fact, it made me feel like I would almost resent him a bit for taking away my identity and forcing me to adjust to a whole new one. Not that he was asking, he let me sort through that one myself, and wasn’t fussed about what I became (or remained as). A very small part of me railed against the tradition from a woman’s perspective and stubbornly asked “Why me? Why not him?”. We became known as a humorous combination of our two names by our friends, and to this day that is how we are known. It works fine. Hasn’t bothered anyone, really. I don’t judge anyone who has done it as I don’t have an opinion on the matter other than what it meant for me, personally.

All that aside, my latest conundrum.

Kids. Of course, the kids. Many folks have stated they did it for the kids. So the kids would feel part of a whole family, so they wouldn’t always wonder why Mommy was someone else than the rest of them. Some women I know live in this half-world where they go by one thing for the sake of the kids (schools, daycare, border crossings, healthcare), but remain their other selves for the rest of the world. That gives me heart palpitations at the thought of how messy record-keeping would be. Maybe it’s fine? I don’t know.

Personally, I don’t see it happening for me. I feel too strongly against it and not strongly enough that it will be a problem for the kids. I think it’s much more widely accepted now by the world at large and we just need to be careful about all the paperwork that proves guardianship in the small percentage of the time we may need it.

But, I don’t know. Do you struggle with the same situation? Have you given it thought? Will you change for the kids? Are the kids really the issue?

Perhaps we can all just become something new and crazy… the Von WinkelStinkers or something.

Then Again, Maybe I Will…

2010-01-04T21:43:00.001-08:00

Tonight’s sobering thoughts brought to you by….

DIY Estate Planning and Will Package,
recognition of my certain demise (someday),
laws created for the lowest common denominator,
my guilt at not doing this sooner, and
the fact that I can’t drink anything to help the process along.

We spent New Year’s Eve in the company of two other CWK’s (Couples with Kids). Around the dinner table, after munching on leftover Christmas treats, the subject of untimely demise arose and one couple stared at the other two, aghast that they had not yet create a last will and testament. Rightly so, though, don’t get me wrong. I wish I could say that because I quickly tallied up the worth of my hoards of assets and realised it was far too valuable to *not* ensure proper disposition.

No, the part that struck a chord was this couple’s assertion that without a named guardian in the tragic event that both parents are lost together (which I sometimes consider us to be already, but that’s another post), the children will automatically become wards of the court, and the court will appoint a guardian as it sees fit. While I am not sure if this is accurate, and I don’t believe there would be any conflict within our extended families around this, and things would end as they should given the circumstance, I am not interested in leaving that to chance, having seen some of the results of government-appointed custody in my previous career.

So, let the unwashed masses ripple through my leftover goods (or, in legal terms, the ‘residue’ of my estate) and take the hunks of worthless metal that I call my computer, or pilfer my collection of measuring cups (acquired through the careful timing of grocery purchases as each week the store offered a new cup for the set… I think I’m still missing the 1/4 cup measure)… but no one shall determine the safekeeping of my child(ren) except Hubby and I.

Just like the time I was halfway home on my hour-long commute and realised my insurance had expired two weeks before, now that I know my “insurance” is not in place for my end of life plans, I feel a sense of urgency and foreboding every minute that we don’t have a signed, official document in place stating our wishes. This is not a quick process, either. I like my life convenient and with results. I don’t like to have to wait when I need to get that gnawing pit out of my stomach. But, I have to create an estate plan first. Then I have to create the correct documents, in proper form. Then I have to have witnesses review and sign in order to make it official. I also have to somehow prove they are real and not just the cat’s well-inked paw.

I just want it to be done and over with, so I can rest assured Version 1.0 will be well taken care of when Hubby and I mysteriously disappear in our sleep.

In all seriousness, I can barely handle the thought of leaving her alone. OK, I can’t handle it at all. Dear reader, I legally and bindingly declare here and now that if we expire tonight on our way to bed, we would like our child to be taken care of by our nearby family, and not Max and Ruby, as my child would prefer (they live in mayhem without direction or guidance… definitely not an environment we support).

Now, please sign here and make this thing official.

I feel so much better.

I still need a drink.

A Sign of Things To Come?

2009-12-30T13:29:00.001-08:00

F inally, I’m back. Finally, for me… you may have wished I was still away. However, I digress. ChristmasKwanzaaNukah is over, we got through the hailstorm of gift opening and lights and dazzle and stomach flu and now seem to be back in some semblance of normal. Life is going at 100 kms an hour and I barely remember the last few hours, much less a week ago.

Version 1.0 got totally spoiled. I mean, like rotten. She had so many presents this year that she actually asked to stop opening them. She was weary by the time we were done. “Come on, honey, just one more present…” “Noooooooo!”. In hindsight, we should have split them up over a few days, but I admit to being a bit more excited than her at the prospect of her being spoiled.

One person that was *not* spoiled… Version 2.0. In fact, we completely forgot about him/her. Not one gift, no stocking, no honourable mention in Christmas cookie decorating even. Fair enough, the little tyke isn’t going to remember yuletide in utero, nor will it care whether or not it was acknowledged with a small token of a hopeful future under the tree. But, for me, it’s a stark realisation of how different things will be the second time.

When I was pregnant (very) with Version 1.0, Christmas time was only weeks from her emergence, and she was the first child for us, the first niece or nephew for my sister, the first cousin for her kids, etc. A representative fraction of gifts were for her, and we talked about her non-stop (in non-gender-specific terms).

This time, I barely remembered being pregnant. How could I, while contending with stomach flu blowouts (both ends), baking gifts, wrapping presents, shopping, not drinking (grumble), preparing savoury feasts and generally entertaining Version 1.0?

All. very. lame. excuses. But, are they? Is all the hype with our first just because we have nothing else to be distracted by? Everyone smiles knowingly and says “Yup. That’s how it goes. The poor second child never gets the attention of the first.”

I was a second child. I do not ever recall feeling inadequately attended to (except when it suited my melodramatic fancy to insist I was terribly hard done by in order to get something I wanted). I hope to never have Version 2.0 feeling inadequately loved, but here’s the thing... I don’t think we could ever keep the pace with the attention we have lavished on Version 1.0. We just cannot. It will be impossible. There will never be as many photos, as much documentation, as many considerations. We’d have to basically quit the rest of our lives and spend every waking second compensating.

I’m already feeling guilty. Poor bugger. But he/she will never know the difference, right? Provided that we are fair and equal in our attention once he/she arrives? That’s what counts, right? Not the number of presents under the tree, absence of baby showers, plethora of hand-me-downs…

Right? Do I need to start searching for a therapist now?

Ringing In The Festive Season (or, Our House is Full of Sugar, Presents and Christmas Movies 24/7)

2009-12-20T18:02:00.001-08:00

This year, Christmas is a bit different. Since Version 1.0 can understand what’s happening a bit better, and seems to be fully aware of all the little traditions that are developing, we have found ourselves getting a bit more into the holiday season a bit earlier (which means Hubby is mildly less Grinch-like and drinks more). Our tree went up the first weekend of December, and all our presents were bought and wrapped and under the tree over a week ago. Version 1.0’s been marvelling at the spectacles of lights and decorations, merriment and laughter that envelopes every store we visit, and drips from her Christmas books that she reads every night.

We have so far managed to avoid Christmas music for the most part, but we allowed the Christmas movies to come out after December 1st. We didn’t bank on her being so enthralled with them and now The Polar Express is on at least three times a day, and it is peppered with viewings of other holiday favourites such as Rudolph, Frosty and The “Ginch”. Yes, she asks for it by name. The Ginch.

The other holiday pleasure that seems to have swept through our house has been a sharp increase in the presence of holiday treats… sugar. Sugar, sugar, sugar. Version 1.0 demanded her first hot chocolate thanks to The Polar Express. We’ve received gifts of baking, have made gifts of baking, and today decorated a rather lopsided gingerbread house. (Here’s the hilarious irony: I felt so guilty about exposing my kid to so much sugar, I bought sugar-free candies to decorate with…. but couldn’t find the sugar-free icing sugar for the icing). As could be predicted, she ate handfuls of candies (not kidding, she actually spit out ten jelly beans at one point when she realised her mouth was too full) and licked most of the icing off the tray. She placed a few marshmallows (also, not sugar-free) and plunked down a few gumdrops for the most part, it was straight from the dish to her mouth.

With all this indulgence – sugar everywhere, presents galore and non-stop Christmas theatre – I’m frightened that we’re going to have a New Year crash when we all of a sudden we go back to normal and everything is exceedingly boring again. I suppose it’s helpful that her birthday is early February, so we can wean her off the spoiled child high. However, I suspect it’s going to be a long January.

Any advice on how to bring my kid down from the month of heaven? How do I distract her from the chaos that surrounds her while we take down the tree and put The Ginch away for another year (Hubby often wonders why that keeps happening to him)?

Getting By With A Little Help From My Friends

2009-12-15T18:22:00.001-08:00

Today I am following a topic shared by a community of mommy bloggers – and a few others who felt compelled to weigh in, for better or for worse.

The back story is that a mommy blogger out there in the world (and I don’t need to perpetuate the drama by including her details) lost her toddler son yesterday when he fell in the swimming pool. Within an hour or two she had tweeted her situation and begged for prayers while he was in emergency care. The situation’s end result was that he didn’t make it, a circumstance too sickly tragic for me to even imagine, and one that would probably put me in a tailspin where I was barely conscious of what I did next. But I can’t even pretend to imagine what I would do. To suggest otherwise would be not only disrespectful but foolish.

Here’s the rub. While 99.999% of her followers were full of support and prayers, whatever they could do to give her strength, there was a contingent who chastised her for letting her child die, for putting him in harm’s way and even questioned her motives, suggesting she was staging the whole incident to collect donations from strangers. A good portion of this last group suggested that noone, NOONE who was facing a dying child would have the wherewithall to post a tweet about it, and nor should they if they were any bit a caring individual who loved her children.

While the bleeding heart in me wants to collectively punch those last bit in their virtual faces for criticizing a person in her situation, regardless of how they feel about her processes, I do have to admit I wondered when she thought about tweeting. And that is only when I think logistically about it – I would be a friggin mess. I make no judgment of her for having posted, I just go through the scenario in my head and can’t rationalise when I would have done it. But she asked for prayers from her community of friends and family online, many of whom I am sure she never met, and I can attest to the fact that strong friendship can be developed with someone you have never met in “real life” and I don’t distinguish between the validity of that type of closeness vs. one formed with people in the flesh. If you are one who believes that prayer can help, it wouldn’t surprise me that you would reach out to as many friends, close or otherwise, that you could to strengthen your chances of some effects. I personally don’t believe in prayer, and therefore may have less inclination to seek my community for immediate help in a time of trauma.

The ensuing debate over whether or not her actions were appropriate is an interesting one. My personal thoughts on the matter are that it’s noone’s place to judge whether someone reacted appropriately or not to any given situation, because this judgement can only come from a place of personal bias that has developed from diverse experiences. However, the more interesting discussion (in my mind) is less about this woman in particular and more about how social communities have matured and developed to a point where they are “real” sources of friendship, support and dialogue, where someone sending their heartfelt love and support virtually can be as encouraging as a hug from another right next to you. Maybe a year ago, looking to a virtual community in times of tragedy would be considered voyeuristic, or inappropriate, or somehow self-indulgent.

I have often wondered what I would do in a time of severe trauma, where would I look for help? My answer: my close friends and family nearby, and my social community online. For information, for guidance, for experience, for perspective. Undoubtedly you can find someone else who has experienced what you had, who has gotten through it and survived, who has wisdom, advice or some helpful words. When I was first pregnant and miscarried (hardly a comparable trauma, but still…), I found incredible perspective after I read other stories (hundreds of them) online from women who were looking for support, offering support, wondering if they were alone in their feelings. I realised how common it was, how others had dealt with it, how others had picked up and had success with future pregnancies, etc. I read stats and probabilities, medical facts and personal stories. It all helped. I connected with other women and just let it all out. That helped tremendously. It would take me forever to piece together a community like that in the people I know in real life. I would never find that kind of relevance and support without a focused group online.

I know of a number of women who have endured personal tragedy far, far greater than my own (I am humbled) and have all used their social communities online to support themselves through the healing process, and who even turned to that community during the incident as it occurred. Is that wrong? Why? Does it show disrespect, or any less depth of feeling for the outcomes? Does it help with the grieving process, or deem it tarnished in some way?

I’d be interested in your thoughts on this subject. As a practitioner of collaborative technologies and social media in some respect, this emergence of very human qualities in a traditionally un-human medium is infinitely interesting. I look for informed and varied perspectives to help me grow mine.

Twinkle Toes

2009-12-14T13:56:00.001-08:00

Reason #837 why I belong in the Bad Moms Club: Last night I painted my toddler’s toenails. I’ve never been one to want to adorn my child with our adulthood indulgences, whether or not we can justify them, and have no intention of piercing her ears or perming her hair.

However. What I do have a need for is some sanity and peace in my life, which is not often begotten through ignoring my child’s demands for something she really, really really wants.

Version 1.0 has always been somewhat fixated on my painted toes. She calls them “Mommy’s pretty toes” and it’s gosh darned cute. She’s never wanted them for herself, but always commented on mine. She did decide after I cut her nails once that now she had “pretty toes”. Yesterday, however, she decided her baby doll wanted pretty toes. So, we painted Dolly’s toes. Looks very odd on a newborn, but whatevs, right?

After a few hours of obsessing on this, Version 1.0 decided she wanted “pretty toes”. I called her bluff, knowing she would shrink at the sight of the paintbrush, and she did. But then the insisting went on, and on, and on, and on for nearly two hours until I was going to pin her down and do it for her if she didn’t agree, just so I didn’t have to hear it again. Well this time she really did want it and stuck her foot out to receive my artistic esthetics. The end result – coral painted mini toes that have her absolutely over the moon.

I’ll admit it looks more than a little weird, and far too Toddlers and Tiaras (sick!) for me, but it makes her dance a little dance of excitement and pride, so I can overlook the shame I feel in giving in to this. And it’s not like it can’t come off, right? Someone please help me feel less trailer park about doing this to my 2-year-old. It was a funny little indulgence, right?

When I start buying her sparkly crowns and spray tan packages, please intervene.

What’s In That Bottle?

2009-12-07T08:46:00.001-08:00

Disclaimer: we’re talking about boobies and the things they do. If that makes you squeamish, stop reading here.

First off, let me say that I *heart* the Bad Moms Club, and I *heart* its founder, and her other blog. She’s very clever, witty and I love her perspective, and read every one of her posts. Recently, there was a post about breastfeeding, and more specifically about an opinion piece in the Huffington Post reviewing bad toys, and specifically a dolly that allowed children to breastfeed (which, for the record, I thought was fine, if not a little strange to look at… certainly less horrific than Baby Pole Dance).

The author makes a valid point about societal perceptions of breastfeeding but includes a few statements about the evils of the formula companies. But, ohhhh, I gotta weigh in on this one. The whole breastfeeding debate makes me squeamish, simply because it's so polarized. If you'd asked me about it before I had a child, I would have steadfastly stood on the side of breastfeeding and sworn up and down that no woman should ever have to use formula, and that it's a cop out. And then I had a baby. And then I had problems breastfeeding. And then the only thing that kept my baby healthy was formula, after countless weeks and months of crying and stressing and herbs and drugs and breastfeeding training and consultation, and finally having to let it go.

Was this my choice? No. Was it my preference? No. Do I now understand just how hard and trying and stressful it can be to feel eternally guilty that I couldn’t do what nature intended, and had to resort to the much hated and villainised formula companies for help? You betcha. However, anyone who has not gone through this hell does not get how crappy us moms feel when the world out there who breastfed with no issues (or has never had a child!) gets on soapboxes and makes us feel like bad moms because we couldn’t do what our babies needed, no matter how hard we tried. I’ve made peace with it now, and my child is healthy and thriving, but it doesn’t hurt any less to be marginalized by what we have been perceived to have decided (or, even worse, have been brainwashed into doing).

I get it, breastfeeding is best and I would encourage any new mom to try hard to get it right. I will try again with my next child, and pray I don’t have to go through the anxiety I did the first time. I know more now and can try something more creative if it doesn’t totally work out, which I could never have known the first time when everyone was so religious about one method or the other. But please realize that there may be more to a woman walking around with a bottle and formula than her giving in to the formula marketing, or just being too lazy or vain to want to breastfeed.

So, back to Her Bad Mother’s point, get your heads out of your collective backsides if you think it’s gross or offensive to breastfeed in public. There is rarely a time I’ve seen a woman letting it all hang out with abandon. For the most part, women are discreet rather than exhibitionist. The more we cringe at the idea of public breastfeeding, the more we make it hard for those women who are a bit shy about the whole thing.

Just be careful to never judge a woman who feeds her child a bottle full of formula. It may not have been her choice, and even if it was, so be it. Whether you believe formula is bad or good, it is nutrition, and has fed multiple hundreds of thousands of millions of children with no noticeable detriments to their health. Some of us haven’t had the luxury of being able to worry about the politics of the situation, we needed our babies to be fed and stop losing weight.

Quite frankly, given my memories of the first few months of newborn life, I guess I should be happy I never resorted to whiskey in that bottle instead.

Addendum: After re-reading this post, I realise it may appear that I am rebutting Her Bad Mother’s piece, which I am not. In actuality, a couple of her comments simply sparked memories of another debate, which I know we both understand well. I am supporting her assertion that society is still scared to embrace breastfeeding. The rant about formula is driven solely from my own experience and is not related to anything she said in her post.

The First Noel

2009-12-04T08:03:00.001-08:00

This will be Version 1.0’s first Christmas. Well, the first one that she will remember and the first where she will kind of get what’s going on. I bought her a bunch of books and movies about Christmas so she can become ~~brainwashed~~ familiar with all the icons and imagery, stories and traditions that accompany our happiest time of the year.

So far, she has embraced it all willingly and has become quite proficient at naming all the associated niceties, such as reindeer and Christmas trees, snowmen and stockings, and Santa. Oh yes, Santa.

I am not entirely sure what Santa represents to her yet, other than possibly a man in a funny “cupping” (costume, a word left over from Halloween). She watches Dora and Boots opening presents after Santa visits, and reads stories of him making red underwear with his elves. Oh, actually, that’s the story from Daddy’s book.. uh, I think her Santa makes trains.

Regardless, she’s seen him and points him out gleefully in the store and in her books and on TV and when the neighbourhood drunk is stumbling home in the wee hours.

However, yesterday my parents came to visit and brought her a little Santa decoration with a sack, thinking she would like to put things in it (like Daddy) and carry him around. Well, for some reason, she is absolutely petrified of him. She doesn’t exactly cry when she sees him, but she gives him this very sharp sidelong glance and will heed him a wide berth in order to not get within range of whatever evil charms he seems to be emitting to her.

I tried to get her to touch him, and even hijacked some of her toys and ‘baby oranges’ (mandarins) and put them in his sack to see what she would do. Apparently, after much consideration, she’s willing to sacrifice the toys rather than touch Santa.

What ever is it that puts the fear of all things holy in her mind when she looks at Santa, I don’t understand. She’s not a winge-y kid and usually is quick to pick up anything, but I am reminded every now and then that those neuro-receptors (my own word, just call me ‘Doctor’) are still young and may be misfiring on some of the basics, like Santa being a stuffed, inanimate object (with particularly beady eyes).

Sugar and Spice

2009-11-30T18:19:00.001-08:00

Version 1.0 has an unhealthy infatuation with my spice drawer/cupboard. I have to open it on the sly because she will invariably dive right in and wreak havoc. For awhile, she even chose favourites. The front runner was always the Greek seasoning for some unknown reason. She has even been known to rearrange all the bottles according to brand (I guess she can tell they look similar). OCD much?

I digress.

Last night I needed some chili pepper or cumin or some such thing and thought she was distracted enough, so I quickly opened the cupboard, turned to apply said flavouring and turned back. Whew! Made it. I trundled about, ~~begrudgingly~~ happily preparing dinner when I noticed her sneezing continuously from the living room.

Upon further investigation, I found her standing in front of the television, watching ~~the devil’s incarnation~~ a cute kid’s show about bunnies, covered head to toe in ground ginger. Not a word of a lie, yo. Not only was she covered, but there were piles of it all over the TV stand and her little couch, and my new carpet. She had opened and dumped a whole bottle of the stuff for some unknown reason.

At this point in time, she had started rubbing it in her eyes and was crying hysterically as it started to burn. I stripped her out of her Christmas-scented clothing and tried to rinse out her eyes. I think I just made it worse, or maybe there was arsenic in the cloth I used to clean her up with.

I had to vacuum all the friggin stuff up and Version 1.0 is petrified of the vacuum. So, picture this. Dinner burning on the stove, child screaming bloody murder, vacuum on full blast, stupid goddamn bunnies yammering away on the TV and stains everywhere. This. frigging. close. to losing my head.

The worst part of it is that I just KNOW when it comes time for this year’s marathon Christmas baking session, I’m going to be cursing the child’s name when I realize I have forgotten to replace the jar of ginger. Hope you like your currybread house this year, kid!

Brie-eating, coffee-drinking, back-sleeping badass mom.

2009-11-24T15:13:00.001-08:00

In my country at least, scaring new and upcoming moms is a national passtime. Oh, the list of what you can and cannot do, should and should not take, see, hear and smell is perpetually growing and will eventually contain every substance, activity and piece of clothing known to woman.

When you are first pregnant, your fear factor is great. You do everything you are “supposed” to and nothing you are not, and you feel pure and clean in your confidence that you have done everything you are supposed to do (include resisting chocolate) to ensure a healthy outcome for your unborn child.

Then you deliver said child and spend countless hours reading parenting books about sleeping, behaviour, stimulation, intelligence, horror stories, and tear-jerking stories that help you become the #1 parent EVER and you just KNOW your kid is going to be a Rhodes scholar (and a well-behaved one at that) by the time you’re done with him/her.

Now, by the time you actually get to toddler phase and you’re knocked up again, you’ve seen it all and heard it all and you’re too tired or saturated or cynical to give a crap anymore, and you realise that all the hype is very much that, just hype. Some way, some how, someone benefits from being a conspiracy theorist. Now you don’t have the time to follow all the instructions, or the inclination to watch everything you eat when the odds are so low that anything will happen. And all that aside, you’re so sick of the pestering you decide to rebel.

Oh, people will tell you what bad choices you’re making, how many nitrates you are consuming in that deli meat and how that cup of coffee is going to make your kid grow an extra shoulder. You’ll be informed that your kid will need therapy in adulthood because you said “no” or that you’ll struggle with behavioural issues for years to come if you don’t start sleep training now.

Bullocks.

I’m joining the Bad Mom’s Club. I`m going somewhere that I can get the support and camaraderie that I need and deserve, where we can celebrate our badness and eat caffeine-laden chocolate cookies after brie and blue cheese sandwiches. We`re going to let our kids stay up past their regimented bed time, put on a DVD for them and feed them cheezies for a night. We`re going to set boundaries without trying to logic, go out in the rain without the right boots, and read books about farting dogs.

It`s perfect. I feel so liberated. Screw you, Internet and do-gooders. I`ll raise my kids just fine without you.

Disclaimer: The author of this blog posting in no way condones irresponsible and reckless behaviour for pregnant women or mothers. Please refrain from doing anything that will truly harm your child, physically or emotionally. But don`t worry about the unmatching pajamas… I promise he`ll get over it.

Image courtesy of www. nataliedee.com.

The most precious thing…

2009-11-23T15:00:00.001-08:00

I’m going to take a minute to get serious here. Just for a minute, although I am sure the subject will be sobering forever.

I’ve been lurking in the mommy blogging world for some time now, getting to know all the superstars, and getting many hours of entertainment from their savvy, brilliant and humorous writing. Eventually, you learn that a number of the main characters all know each other well, and have formed a little community of each other across the continent. These women are bright and witty but very often have tragic or life-altering back stories that definitely inform, but do not hamper their will to live.

Recently, one member of the close-knit community (who I have never met and never knew of until now) had a stroke. A terrible, debilitating incident that has left her in hospital in critical care as she tries to gain consciousness and her family fights for her. Tragic enough as it is, right? Well, here’s the rest of the story. Many of the mommies know this woman because she fought hard for her daughter to beat childhood cancer (leukemia) not long ago, and had another stroke a few years back when said daughter was only an infant. This woman has worked tirelessly for the cause, supported her daughter and kept her family together and even found it in herself to be a pillar of strength for the other mommies out there who needed her experience and insight.

Now, she lays in a hospital bed incapacitated, with her husband and family and close friends praying for her recovery. The prognosis is dire, but they all believe in her will to live.

As I think about the situation, I can’t help but cling tightly to my own little one, and be eternally thankful we are all in relatively good health and have so far been pretty fortunate. I realize my little one is a tremendous treasure that I am responsible for protecting and coveting. I can’t even fathom not having the ability to do that.

I’d encourage everyone to reach out and think of a way to help someone who is in need. Project yourself in their positions for even a minute, try to feel the heartbreak or the desperation that they feel all day, every day as they try to survive. Think of what it would mean to them to receive a little bit of help, whether it’s your time, or other resources, or just your presence. It’s too easy to forget when we are so consumed with daily survival.

Everything I need to know about parenting, I learned from Max and Ruby.

2009-11-22T19:19:00.001-08:00

Version 1.0 loves Max and Ruby. Really, like loves it. We watched maybe 8 episodes in a row today before I finally had enough (to justify myself, I’m on my death bed with a man-cold and therefore had a great excuse for being a sloppy parent). Personally, I can’t stand Ruby. Her voice is like sandpaper on my sensitive brain, and she’s the biggest bossy boots ever.

Maybe parents shouldn’t watch their kids’ shows. We know too much. However, I can’t resist pointing out a few anomalies about the show that really don’t add up. And then, as I think about these oddities, I realize I could maybe turn this around to my own personal gain. Watch.

Absentee parents aren’t a problem. Did you ever notice that neither parent seems to live in the same house as these two child bunnies? They are *never* around. But, look how well-adjusted and responsible Ruby has turned out to be. Max may be a bit young to verbally communicate the depth of his character but there are plenty of instances where we see his integrity and ability to logic shining through. Like when he wanted to give Ruby a birthday surprise and tricked her into thinking he was just a dumb toddler bunny, but really he was leading her to a surprise party he had orchestrated with Grandma Bunny? Clearly, even without any parents or guardians around, both bunnies have turned out to be stellar role models with excellent manners. Sweet! That means Hubby and I can go out and party most weeknights and don’t have to worry about coming home the next day! This is life changing.

All grandparents are closet cowboys (or girls). In the episode about Grandma Bunny’s birthday, we learn that Grandma Bunny used to be a crazy lasso-throwing, chaps-wearing rodeo queen. Once again, Max was the one with the intuition but that’s beside the point. This means that I can remain boring and career-focused and my parents and in-laws can be the inspiration for the crazy, giggly sleepover talk.

All that I need to keep a little boy happy is a loud toy. Max is obsessed with every product in the Ear-Splitter® (the actual brand name in the show) line of toys. So far, I have seen him spend hours being enthralled with the Green Alien Angry Gorilla, the Traffic Watcher Helicopter, the One-Eyed Chopping Parrot and a few others that I have now forgotten. They are all obnoxious. However, I now know that if Version 2.0 is a boy, all I need to do is stock up on some grating toys and we’re good for hours of play.

It’s cute when little girls make themselves look cheap. Ruby and her little friend Louise are often engaged in imaginative play involving scads of makeup (not sure where they get it from as Mommy doesn’t seem to exist… probably swiped it from the local drug store, but that’s another plot line) and they end up looking like little night-walkers. Grandma Bunny thinks it’s hilarious and the girls are rather unapologetic. So the first time Version 1.0 comes downstairs dressed in a tube top and daisy dukes with a veritable brothel’s supply of war paint, I don’t need to be concerned. I just need to smile knowingly and get a little tear in my eye as I reach for the camera to document it for her grandparents. According to the points above, they will totally relate.

Every elder sibling is infinitely tolerant of his/her next of kin. Max gets up to all kinds of crap, usually with the distinct objective of screwing up Ruby’s day. He even has a look that he gets when he’s preparing for it. I mean, he seriously puts her out. But she’s always ready to forgive him, never loses her cool, and ends up indulging him in whatever game he is playing with her. Phew! I was so worried about Version 1.0 being OK with her new baby brother/sister, but I see now I have nothing to be concerned about. If Ruby’s that even-keeled without any parents around, we’re totally set.

I’m so glad we spent the day with the show. My whole philosophy and all the hours I spent worrying are, I realize, a thing of the past. I’m going to stock up on bonbons and put my feet up tomorrow without a care in the world. Thank you, Bunny Scouts.

PS. As I was doing some online research on the subject after writing this entry, I ran across this posting. Turns out I’m not alone on this!

Ice-Capades

2009-11-20T11:18:00.001-08:00

We took Version 1.0 skating today for the first time ever. Let’s just say it was traumatic for all involved. I think even the zamboni driver was feeling a bit bad near the end.

However, it was about what I expected. Version 1.0 had been talking about “skeeting” all night since we tried on the skates last night, and was super excited until we actually got there. Then the waterworks began.

The nice lady who teaches the class (we’re just doing drop-in for now) had some markers and bubbles and that thankfully kept Version 1.0 happy while she got used to the ice. We did get her standing up and taking a few steps, and Daddy pulled her along in a chair for a few seconds. I’ll take it as progress.

In the end, she didn’t want to leave, as we were disrobing in the skate-taking-off area. She also liked the shiny sheep sticker she got as a prize for enduring the activity (as per usual, she thought all the stickers were for her and we had to humbly return a fistful to the nice lady).

We’re encouraged that the rest of the kids in the class have been skating only since September and are already ready for the pros. They all started out as a blubbering mess like Version 1.0 today. I’m betting that with a few more episodes on the ice, she’ll get tired of the spaz and want to zoom around like the other kids. So we’ll just keep on keeping on.

But why does every introduction to a new activity have to feel like we’re adding to the therapy bill in adulthood? I’m reading a book right now called The Science of Parenting (see? you just have to apply a formula… easy) and apparently our kiddies haven’t yet developed their higher thinking brain parts yet (something to do with synapses and wall sockets… or was that electrical currents?) so new stuff is immediately reverted to the ‘reptilian brain’ which manages the ‘fight or flight’ responses. According to the author, I just need to be more emotionally responsive in order to get her to think logically and reason her way through traumatic situations. I guess a smack on the bum and a “Go get ‘em, Tiger!” doesn’t qualify as emotionally responsive?

“Have you gained some weight?”

2009-11-19T08:31:00.001-08:00

Last night I watched a program on TLC called “I Didn’t Know I Was Pregnant”. It’s a documentary-style show on women who mysteriously gave birth in toilets or restaurants or in the office copy room with apparently just a little indigestion and a popping sound.

What. The……?

So I’m thinking of my experiences being pregnant. I’m also thinking of the experiences of nearly every other woman I know who has been pregnant. I have no doubt that these women’s stories are true, but I just don’t get it.

First, they all delivered full term babies over 7 lbs 5 oz. I direct you to the picture on the right (32 weeks ish… still lots of protrusion to go). My child was 7 lbs 15 oz. Not much bigger. How does that NOT show?? I looked like a friggin hippo! And these were not women with alot of extra padding on them under which baby could be disguised. Many of them were my size, or maybe a couple of sizes bigger, tops. I just don’t get it.

And each of them just popped them out with a quick little push on the toilet. REALLY?? Because I quite distinctly remember 4.5 hours of blood-vessel-popping, full body effort to finally get my kid out with the help of a vacuum device.

Then, the symptoms. OK, so not everyone pukes their guts out every day for 4 months, and some are lucky enough to have few, if any symptoms, but don’t you notice … something? Anything? Of ALL the unpleasantries that can occur with this (fortunate or unfortunate) state, they happened to also notice NONE? They were all blessed with a no-show belly monster, very little weight gain, no morning sickness, nausea, fatigue, ligament stretching, bleeding, flutters in the stomach? When my kid got to be around 20 weeks, she started kicking the crap out of me on an hourly basis. None of that?? Really?

I just don’t get it. Maybe if I just try and ignore Version 2.0 I can will myself not to get any bigger and when the time comes, I will just plop it out in the gymnasium during playgroup, and we’ll be done with it.

Given that I figure I’ve got one more week in my normal pants, I somehow think I won’t be so fortunate.

Busy Bodies

2009-11-18T09:10:00.003-08:00

Today, like every Wednesday, my daughter is off to a crafty-run around-sing-dance-games playgroup at the local community centre. It took me a few weeks to get the name right, all I could remember were “crafts'” and “tumbling” so for awhile I called it Running With Scissors.

The benefit of groups like these is that she gets out of the house for an hour or two, which is especially important when the weather sucks so badly and Mommy can’t stand anymore eternally joyful Spanish explorer characters on the DVD player.

However, the downside is that these groups tend to be germ incubation facilities and every freaking time she goes, she gets sick within a couple of days. This one, maybe a little less so, but the pure tumbly-run around-expend all energy group on Sundays is like a zombie infestation of germs.

Is it because parents let their sick kids go to playgroups, thinking they are on the mend or not quite sick enough to stay home? Or are germies transferrable long before we detect them? Is it better to protect my kid for her first 18 years and not let her out of the house, or to expose her to as much crap as possible in the hopes that she will develop wicked immunity?

I don’t know the answer to this, having never finished (or started) my doctorate of medicine or disease control or whatever you study to know that stuff. But I do know that I’d better stock up on the baby Tylenol for the winter season because the way it’s panning out, we’re going to be inside alot.

And she should probably stop licking the bathroom counters at the rec centre.

Here we go again...

2009-11-17T12:52:00.000-08:00

Well, I got knocked up again.

And what better time to finally start a new blog?

I mean, here I was just sitting around on a typical day, nothing to do except everything I already hadn't achieved, and finally decided to take the plunge and start my mommy blog. Although I love my work, writing about brow-furrowing serious stuff made my eyes cross and, to be completely frank, my mental capacity (being greatly diminished by the conception and subsequent birth of Version 1.0) is barely enough to remember what I last posted about.

My hidden motivation is the ranks of awesomeness (see here, and here, and here) that I call the Mommy Blog World, and the visions of grandeur I harbour at participating alongside them (I know I am perhaps a little biased in this list and it is by no means exclusive, but these are among my favorite... and all Canadian).

As Version 1.0 is nearly 2, and Version 2.0 is due in May, I figure I've got some good material at the ready. Version 1.0 being the willful and oh-so-nearly-2 kind of girl she is, I may actually be looking for a little help and maybe even commisseration so I don't feel like such a whiner. Now that morning sickness is mostly over, and my gut doesn't yet feel like a bowling ball on steroids, I may have the energy to actually keep this up.

Lately, the Battle Royale is being waged against a particular animated children's series which involves lots of singing and dancing and Spanish. In small doses, it's great. When I go to bed at night with their songs in my head and I happen to know every word, it's bordering on prisoner-of-war torture. When Version 1.0 comes up with words I never knew she knew, I'm largely indebted to this well-crafted show, but I need some alternatives.

Last weekend, I staged a craft party for Version 1.0's little friends. The end result was a glorious mess of pipe cleaners, pompoms, sparkly glue and stickers but fun was had by all, in a largely unstructured way. Now, we are on to colouring books and magnetic doodly things that provide a smidgen of distraction. I am branding myself as the Worst Parent Ever for being so distracted with my work that I can't keep my kid focused on something less .... well, guilty, but we're trying. The recent monsoons in the area have prevented us from leaving the house, so no more parks for the time being.

Please save me from my child's obsession. How else can we have her entertain herself without turning her mind to mush, and allowing me to work? I've tried blunt scissors and scotch in her sippy but the end results were less than pretty.