Wish I was here

I have a million posts in draft and a lot of funny stories to tell you. But life is getting in the way these days. Which is good and bad. I miss you guys...

In the meantime, I HAVE to blog over here, so I hope this tides you over...
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Last weekend, my daughter, my sister and I embarked on a leisurely stroll through Leslieville for ice-cream sampling. We debated on the great big line-up at Ed's Real Scoop, blew bubbles on the delightful patio at Nathalie Roze and Co. (try the Vanilla Fig), wondered if the neighbourhood really needed a soon-to-be-opened new place and then decided YES as we treated ourselves to more ice cream at the newly opened Leonidas.

My husband got Nate a reliable and affordable scoop at The Film Buff and we met in the middle at Leslie Grove park to compare notes. The kids played happily (thanks to their sugar high) and as I was formulating dinner plans in my head, Lucy wandered over to the sand toys where a three-year-old girl was playing.

Any mom at an urban park has probably experienced this: The toys are there for everyone, but one kid doesn't want to share. The three-year-old would not give up a single toy. Not wanting to be a "helicopter mom" I stood back and figured I'd let them work it out. Plus I need to round everyone up so I could get dinner started. I turned for a second to get Nate's shoes on when I heard crying.

Continued at Sweetmama.ca: Woolly Bully

Fear Factor

"Ok buddy, it's good night time."

"Can you stay for a bit? And can I stay in your cosy bed?"

The light is dim, the comics have been read. It was Free Comic Book Day recently and we've hit the motherload and veered away from our standard DC SuperFriends and Tiny Titans (the greatest comic book ever written for wee kids). I read an excerpt from a hilarious Simpson's comic, but made a deal that I wouldn't have to read the horrible Futurama one that follows and traded for some Robert Munsch instead.

We sleep head to head, his too-long bangs grazing his mink-thick eyelashes, my bobby pin typically askew. I don't mean to fall asleep next to him, but the scene is often so peaceful, so full of absolute love that I am lulled to gentle slumber, knowing full well in the back of my mind I have a story to file for tomorrow.

Not quite two hours later I wake slightly, examine the clock and wearily decide that I will wake up early to sneak the story in. I pull on the chain of the bedside lamp that's glaring in my eyes and soon I am back to sleep.

I do not consider the detrimental effect this extinction of light will cause moments later. I fail to remember that his sleep is precarious; that the sleep gods do not like to be disturbed and often take hold of his brain in protest.

I awake to terrified screaming. He's calling for me. I'm right here, I assure him, but we are not in the same dimension. He is trapped in a world I cannot see. His eyes are open, his face heart-breakingly fearful, body trembling. He tries to grasp something where the pillow lays. Briefly, he seems to see me, except I am the headboard. I stay constant, recalling my husband's advice, wracked with his own night terrors 30 years ago: "Just be tender and comfort him."

His eyes are wide open, tears of fright streaming down his face. He moves around the bed, trying to escape a phantom menace, tearing at his face. I rub his back. "I am here lovey, Mommy is right here, you are safe, you are safe, it's just a dream..." I try a variety of word combinations, wondering if there is some magic safe word that breaks the spell and returns my son to me.

Tonight Batman was there too, in this wakeful dream. Or he wanted Batman, I'm not sure. One thing is consistent with the terrors, he is always calling for me. It's the part that makes me feel the most helpless, as I am right there to provide comfort, yet he is so far away mentally and can't connect with my physical presence.

"It will be over soon, it will be over soon," I chant to myself. I mentally go through pages of websites and readings on the differences between night terrors and nightmares. If you don't know, you've never witnessed a night terror. A nightmare is an annoying disturbance in the night. A night terror happens within the first two or three hours of falling asleep and scars a parent for life.

He finds his thumb, soothes himself and I am elated. It's over, I think, but no sooner do I think this then it starts anew. House-shaking shrieks. I try to hold him and rock him like a baby. It seems to help. When he seems calm enough I take him to the bathroom. This I remember from my own childhood nightmares, which plague me to this day. The body's urge to pee must be obeyed, and in a deep sleep the nightmare is sometimes the body's way of trying to wake you up.

He sucks his thumb and puts his head on my shoulder, his limp body letting me know the worst is over. I gingerly place him in his bed beside mine, realizing that we can't get rid of the gates lest he hurt himself during an episode, wondering how we will deal with this once he and his sister are back in the same room.

I lumber downstairs to my laptop.

Down with Sickness

First it was that runny nose that made us think her molars must be coming in.

Then it turned to pink eye.

Then she had some funky green that appeared to be coming out her hoo-ha.

I thought it was nothing. I figured that she had so much mucous it had to come out somewhere.

I polled my mom friends with daughters. No one had heard of such a thing. Still, I let it go.

On Mother's Day she was so sick and clingy that I could go nowhere. She had a fever, I was mildly concerned.

My mother, on the other hand, was mega concerned. "She definitely has to be seen by a doctor!"

After two days of being cooped up in my house with a daughter that would not leave my arms and a son that needed to act out because Mommy was giving all the attention to Lucy, I was done. My brain was fried.

"I'll just make a quick call to Telehealth," I said, partially to appease my worried-looking parents; thinking that the nurse would say it's no big deal.

The nurse was stuck on green stuff out the hoo-ha. "That doesn't sound right. She needs to see a doctor in the next four hours." We raced to the Children's Clinic. The doors were locked. I'd missed last call by 10 minutes. The attendant told me to go to emerg.

Fuck. Fuckity Fuck Fuck.

Great, I thought, now we're all going to get swine flu for this thing that's probably nothing. Then the panic devil that sits on my irrational side said, "Wait. Maybe she has an e-coli infection from jumping in Lake Ontario last weekend. Maybe you're a bad mother..."

In the hospital triage she touched everything. Every potentially swine flu covered object was interesting to her. So she touched them. And then she stuck her hands in her mouth for good measure. They gave her Tylenol for her fever. This made her hyper and before long she was running through triage, lying on the floor and then hi-fiving every potential swine flu victim in there.

Greeeeeat.

J called to see if he should go grocery shopping while I waited. I told him my anxiety couldn't handle that. I needed his company to keep me sane. He arrived to find her sliding down a mini slide in the kids' waiting room and then dancing a jig when she saw him. I looked like a moron.

The doctor finally looked at her three hours later. Viral infection. Just what I thought. Happy Mother's Day to me. I got to be right. Bloody hell.

We are on day 70-some-odd of the snots and the crustiness and I am so. over. it. She's approaching the terrible twos with lightening speed and this crap isn't helping. We've been indulging her sweet sick self with ample TV time, all kinds of night time visits, juice -- all the bad stuff. Over the next few weeks there will be a reckoning my friends. Here's hoping I'm not the one waving the white flag at the end.

My lovely lady lump

I was interviewed by Amy Verner for this weekend's Globe Style article on modern maternity fashions. Of my (I'd like to think hilarious) 10-minute interview, I ended up with the print equivalent of a sound-bite, but that's to be expected.

What I didn't expect was the readers' viewpoints in the comments on the piece. Many people felt that pregnant bellies are not something to flaunt. Some even view the modern, fitted maternity styles as obscene. I disagree. As I often quipped during my two pregnancies, "I've spent the last 15 years sucking my belly in. This is the one time in my life where I don't have to and I'm totally taking advantage of that fact."

Read on: Sweetmama.ca: Belly-issima!

The Sacrifice

I've often judge my mother and harshly. As I was growing into womanhood and deciding who I wanted to be, I looked at her housewifey, homemaker past and considered it not very exciting. I didn't want to be like her: A Yes-man, a people pleaser, someone who kept up with the Jones-ians.

The truth is, I had no clue.

I was always the good child, the Yes-man, the people pleaser. I think as I approached adulthood, I resented my mother for instilling this passive, Geisha behaviour in me. Be smart, but never let them think you're smarter than them. Nod and say yes, even if you know better. (Which, as you might have guessed, I've never really been able to do.) Why didn't I take more chances? Why didn't I move out, or move to England with J when he left a decade ago? Why did I never want to rock the boat? Why did they hold me back?

The people-pleasing child has become a total asshole in these past few years. As my mother helps to raise my children, I often seem ungrateful, letting my tiredness and stress get in the way, saying horrible things and hurting feelings. Old wounds resurface and I am critical (especially around issues with food), micromanaging, constantly suggesting things that I've read in books or on websites, instead of trusting my mother's instincts, years of experience and the fact that she loves my kids as much as I do.

Lately I've been thinking about things differently. I've been trying to figure out why my mother (the most important relationship of my life) and I rub each other the wrong way. Okay, okay -- why my mother rubs ME the wrong way. I've been trying to figure out how I can just let all the nitpickiness go and learn how to enjoy my mother as a person again.

And then, the other day, it struck me.

I started to think about my mother, the youngest of four, the accidental child. I began to imagine her growing up in Turkey, being the first woman in her family to get a job outside of what was acceptable (you could teach before you had children, but then all bets were off). Being the only one to push the boundaries of the sexual revolution, with her mini-skirts and her weekly trips to get her hair did and her job as a bank teller.

I remember my mom telling me that she had wanted to be an engineer. That she enjoyed math. But there was no real way for her to afford the schooling, nor was it acceptable back then. So she took a job at the bank, working with numbers, counting more money than she'd ever had.

My mother moved to Canada in her late 20s. Already considered a spinster back home (she was picky -- there's more to it, but that goes in a book in the future), she joined her eldest sister and her family in Montreal, then moved with them to Toronto when the nation's economy changed.

I can only imagine the immense heartache she felt at having to move away from her parents and other siblings. From her friends and the world that she knew. But I now know why she did it.

I have never had to hold myself back because of societal implications. I live in a country where it's acceptable for a girl to go to school and achieve the highest level of education possible. I live in a country where I am free to speak my mind (and clearly I really use this priviledge to its fullest) in any forum, without fear for my life. I can wear what I want, eat what I want, think what I want. I can marry someone just because I love him. Or I could have not married him and just lived with him in sin (though there's a people-pleasing Armo in me that vetoed that rock-the-boat option). I can be a mom and a workaholic editor, and although people might judge me for my choices, they will still smile and lend a hand when needed.

Somewhere, in the back of my young mom's mind, she must have known she'd have two mouthy, ballsy daughters who would not be afraid of squeezing Life's lemons to make lemonade, each in their own way. She had to have known that if she birthed even one daughter with half of her own headstrongness, she would have to get out of Turkey.

Thanks mom, for coming to Canada for me. Thanks for loving me even when I'm an asshole; thanks for patiently smiling, knowing I will eventually come to my senses and realize my wrongs. Thanks for always being there in a heartbeat to help me out -- even when you're not feeling well -- and for loving my kids as much as you do.

Happy Mother's Day Mom. I love you. (Now don't get all smug and "I told you so" about this confession!)

Before I was a mom

Sometimes I'm wistful when I think about all the things that have changed since I gave birth to my incredible human beings. I get caught up in what is no longer: The freedom, the spontaneity, having a full-night's sleep or an uninterrupted meal. I don't sugar-coat it: Motherhood is not always a sweet gig.

But then I feel bad, because many of my childless Sweetspot and Sweethome colleagues might be rethinking their reproductive decisions based on my complaints. How do I convey that it really is amazing; that the rewards completely outweigh the downsides?

Read more: Sweetmama.ca: Before I was a mom

Toronto Mamas

Hey all, I just wanted to get the word out about my fabulous friend Sam Lamb's art show this Friday night. You can get a feel for the wonderful work of my talented pal at her blog. I'll be going with my hot date, Nate. Details below. Hope to see you all there.

Date:	08 May 2009
Time:	19:00 - 22:00
Location:	LE Gallery
Street:	1183 Dundas Street West
Town/City:	Toronto, ON

Opening Reception: May 8th, 7-10pm
Gallery Hours: Wed-Sun, 12-6pm

Stamps. Linen. Embroidery. Dolls. And a handful of dirty thoughts.

Modern life is not easy for today’s working mother. The daily struggle to balance full-time employment while raising children inevitably takes its toll on a woman’s personal identity. Using domestic materials and handcrafts, Lamb explores this struggle by setting up marked contrasts between material and message. Inappropriate sexual desires are delicately spelled out on dolls, while traditional samplers reveal weighty confessions in place of the expected motivational Psalms.

Reclaiming these materials and crafts as a canvas for expression while carefully respecting their history and practice is at the core of the current movement towards a New Domesticity. Swallowed Words places Lamb’s work within this larger dialogue, and reveals a new opportunity for domestic materials to communicate modern issues of identity.