Category: Uncategorized

A while back, I posted a meme where you check off a bunch of stuff on a list and then count up your score to see if you are “spoiled”. I did the meme without editorializing, but Elizabeth and Phantom Scribbler both hosted some interesting discussions on what exactly it means to be spoiled.

After taking in all that (and a little bit more, but you’ll have to find that reference on your own), I’ve been thinking about it in the context of spoiling your kids. This is one of the things I worry about frequently, because I know my kids are very privileged (to use a distinction Phantom Scribbler made), and I know they are perfect little consumers, target markets as susceptible to advertising as their supposedly media-savvy mother.

But are they spoiled? What does that mean?

We went to the mall on Sunday morning because we had to get out of the house and it was five degrees and windy and raining outside. (Yes, I am still complaining about the weather. Only several hours of sunshine will dry up this puddle of resentment.) The boys just about drove us batty with their requests to go to the toy store so they could play with the train table and the dollhouse while we browsed in a few other stores, but through an entire morning in the mall they never once asked if they could have anything. They rarely do, in fact, and if they do and we say no, that’s usually the end of it. I can’t think of a single meltdown or even argument we’ve had over being denied a treat in a store.

I like to indulge them. I like to give them inexpensive little treats like stickers and colouring books and plastic toys from the dollar store every couple of weeks. Beloved prowls the sale bins at Winners to find good deals on Thomas and Bob the Builder toys. Birthdays and Christmas tend toward the excessive (excessive in my definition is more than three or four presents each) only because we keep finding stuff we know the boys will love, and we are both kids at heart. There are toys and books and videos creeping out from under the furniture, overflowing bins and stacked four deep on the shelf. But does having stuff mean you’re spoiled? Or is it more about your relationship with stuff, with what you have and what you don’t?

Tristan continues to covet trains. He will often say, “I wish I had an Oliver.” Or he’ll talk about whatever gift-giving occasion is on his radar screen and say, “I hope the Easter Bunny brings me a Douglas, Mummy!” For a while, I was making a conscious effort to reply to these pinings with a reminder of all the stuff he does have: “Yes, but you are very lucky to have a Gordon and a Henry and all these other trains, right?”

And then I realized I was being hypocritical. After all, I am the Queen of Covetousness. It doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate what I have, it just means I have a bit of a weakness for what I want – a new couch, a fancy-ass digital SLR camera, a new wardrobe. Fun to want, to dream about, to plan and pine for, but I know realistically that I’m not getting them any time soon. And if Tristan is merely expressing what he might like to have without throwing hissy fits because he can’t have it, how is that any different?

Is it hypocritical to feel smug because I would never indulge the kids with a $500 ride-on Thomas, but will probably spend nearly that in traveling half way across the province to let them ride on a life-sized Thomas – again?

So what is spoiled? Is it about acquisitions, or is it about attitude? My kids are only two and four, but they seem to genuinely appreciate any little thing we give them, even if their attention span is measured in minutes instead of days. They don’t get everything they ask for, but they get way more than they ‘need’. I look around the house sometimes and feel a guilty shame at the sheer amount of stuff they have – and other days I’m grateful to have been able to provide it for them. I’m conflicted.

Do you worry about spoiling your kids? When does consumerism and materialism trip the line into being spoiled? Does indulging your kids lead to a sense of entitlement?

It’s been raining for 10 straight days. It was cold enough to snow this morning and the winds haven’t stopped gusting all night. Safe to say the holiday weekend weather is a bust.

BUT!

At least I have a meme to play with this morning, courtesy of Froggie Mom. Here’s how it works: if you wanna play too, let me know in the comments and I’ll assign you a letter. Then you write about 10 words that start with that letter that are important to you and explain why.

Okay, here we go.

Happy: this is what I want to be. Above all else in life, my only real goal is to be happy, and for my kids to be happy, and for those I care about to be happy. I like to think of myself as a happy person. And when I was five, I had a dog named happy. Happy is a good word.

Hip: I will never be able to stand fully upright again after toting my 30+ lbs preschoolers around with my hip canted to brace them. I may not have the figure of a runway model, but these hips were built for carrying children.

Holiday: ostensibly a break from work, but after three straight days of being trapped in the house by rain and freezing temperatures, the holiday seems like a day at the office right about now.

Hair: My one ongoing vanity. From the added thickness and lustre of pregnancy hormones to learning to tolerate if not love spit-up and cereal-crusties in my hair to the tender affection of rambunctuous preschoolers pausing to run their fingers through my hair… I just don’t get why so many new mothers cut their hair off.

Highlander: one of my favourite movies. There should have been only one!

Hiccup: one of the best parts of pregnancy, feeling the baby’s hiccups.

Harmony: because it’s a beautiful word, and because I’ve always wished I could carry a tune, and because music is so important in my life, and because the secondary meaning of peace isn’t a bad aspiration either.

Ha ha ha, hee hee: everybody needs a coping mechanism. Laughter is mine. It could be worse!

Halcyon: I just like this word. I like to say it out loud, and I love the image it evokes in my head – sunshine, easy times, blissful memories.

Haloscan: my blog enabler. A day without comments is worse than a day without sunshine.

Hedonism: because in the end, it’s all about me.

About a million years ago, the husband of one of my co-workers, who happens to be a training coordinator at another government department, asked me if I’d be interested in doing a “Lunch and Learn” presentation about blogging.

I said yes, but I was really nervous. I don’t mind speaking in public – I actually made it to the city-wide finals for public speaking when I was in Grade 7 – but I’m way out of practice, and I was anxious about whether I had enough to say about blogging to last an entire hour. (Stop laughing.)

And then I found out that Dave, the guy organizing the event, had also asked another local blogger to be part of the presentation. I knew her a little bit, had been to her blog a few times, but was now even more nervous about coordinating this with someone I didn’t know very well.

(I couldn’t resist – as I was typing this, I started to flip back through my calendar to see exactly when we all first met for coffee to discuss this idea: it was November 22, almost exactly six months ago. Wow, a lot can happen in six months! Hey look, quelle surprise, I even blogged about that coffee meeting.)

Of course, the “other blogger” was Andrea. I like to think that even if Dave didn’t shove us together that day for coffee, we’d’ve probably become friends eventually anyway. Because everybody needs more friends like Andrea in their lives.

And I’m not just saying that because it was Andrea who got the gig to talk about blogging on CJOH! Somehow, talking to a room with a couple of (or even a couple dozen) civil servants doesn’t seem nearly so intimidating once you’ve talked to 40,000 or so about it on the news. Twice.

I feel rather important today, going off to give a seminar to my fellow public servants. This is the kind of thing I thought I might like to do professionally some day – getting into training and learning. And aside from getting up in front of people and showing them slides of my adorable boys, I can’t imagine a topic I’m more comfortable discussing.

The hour-long format, which at first sounded like an endless expanse of time, now seems like a relief after trying to cram everything I know and think about blogging into a four minute sound-bite for the news – while still letting the other people get a word in edgewise. A captive audience, an hour to talk, a buddy to share the experience, and I actually know what I’m talking about – it’s my dream job!

Would you enjoy something like this if it were offered to you? What would you say?

Some days, just getting to work is more than half the battle.

My first mistake was stopping to kiss the kids goodbye. I had already given them air kisses as I ran through the room on my way out the door, but they chased me to the door yelling “Kiss! Hug! Kiss! Hug!” and I don’t know what kind of mother could put up any meaningful resistance to that kind of pressure.

So everybody got a good snuggle and a sloppy kiss (with no worries about Bob Lipstick) but as I stepped on to the driveway I could see the bus at the bus stop, a good seven or eight houses down the road. I took off at a dead run, fairly confident that I’d make it because of the largish crowd of people still waiting to board.

(I don’t know why this bus driver doesn’t like me, but he doesn’t. Every morning he glares at me as I get on the bus, more often than not breathless and relieved at having arrived at the last possible moment. Maybe he thinks I’m not respecting him by spending hours waiting for the bus, or maybe he just doesn’t like my deodorant. But no matter how perky I am as I flash my pass at him (and that says a lot, that I’m willing to be friendly enough to make a stab at perky before my first morning coffee), he never so much as smiles back at me.)

So I got to the corner across from the bus stop just as he was closing the door, and started to wave my arms and holler. The driver looked studiously ahead of him and completely ignored me as he drove right past me, close enough that I could have whacked the side of the bus with my bag had I been so inclined. Which I almost was. I could see the smug hint of a grin as he drove past. There is no way he could have missed me, 5’8″ of excited waving limbs wrapped in a bright coral coat, the only thing moving on an otherwise sleeping suburban street at 6:30 in the morning.

Eventually, I catch another bus and ride downtown steaming from not only the encounter with the mean bus driver and my 75m sprint, but the stuffy humidity on the bus. I make it downtown and renew my vow to shake off a bad start to the day.

The line-up at Tim’s is particularly long, but I wait with patience, scouring my brain to come up with something, anything, to blog about this morning. (Sorry about the dry posts lately. I’ve scrapped through the bottom of the barrel into the dust below. Muse, where are you?) I get to the front of the line and realize I’ve forgotten my purse at home. No cash = no coffee. I want to fall to the floor in a weepy puddle, but instead trudge with a heavy heart to my office, mourning the loss of my morning joe.

I’m already 10 or so minutes behind schedule from missing my usual bus and the fruitless wait for coffee, but when I get to my cube and manage to scrape together enough for a large (not extra-large, but close enough) coffee from between the paper clips and post-it notes rattling around in the bottom of my drawer, and even find a forgotten roll-up-the-rim-to-win free doughnut, my mood improves significantly. I make the long trek back to Tim’s and wait in another queue, and I am salivating at the smell of the coffee.

I place my order and trade my sweaty handful of nickels and dimes for a hot cup of steaming relief. I am about to turn away from the cash when the miniscule oriental woman operating the cash tells me I am short 10 cents. I look at her disbelievingly and tell her that I counted that money very carefully, and I know for a fact there is enough for one large coffee, three milks, thank you very much.

She shows me the palm full of coins and as I count them I realize she is right. I beam her a panicked attempt at a “Oh well, what can you do, I guess I owe you a dime next time, right, oh please, don’t take my coffee away!” smile, and she actually reaches for the coffee I am now clutching with something approaching desperation.

While the queue grows restless behind me, I want calmly engage this woman, this surprisingly powerful peon of minimum wage, in a rational discussion of the value of things; to convey to her in reasonable terms that my entire emotional well-being may well hinge a ten cent piece, but intead I stammer “I can’t – can you – I really need – oh please…” tucking the coffee close to me and getting ready to bolt. There is a very small voice in the back of my head that tells me that absconding with a coffee from the mall food court in front of 50 people is perhaps not a wise career move, but the warmth radiating through the paper cup infuses me with a sense of entitlement and I know that no matter what happens, I will not – NOT – relinquish this coffee.

And then fate intervenes, embodied in the shape of a lovely young woman waiting for her toasted bagel and cream cheese. I suddenly realize that our custodial battle over the underfunded coffee has become a public spectacle as she says, “Excuse me, but I have a dime. Here you go,” and hands the dime to the thwarted cashier. “It’s on me,” she says, turning to me. “Have a great day.”

I consider dropping to the floor to kiss her feet, but instead decide to simply grovel profusely for a moment while the cashier rolls her eyes. I babble something profoundly lame about “karma” and the kindness of strangers and retreat hastily before someone changes their mind and takes my hard-won coffee away.

All this before 7:30 in the morning. It’s going to be an interesting day!

Oops, almost forgot to tell you there’s a new issue of The Whole Mom out this week! The Whole Mom is part e-zine and part mother’s community, edited and lovingly put together by Andrea and Kim. There’s fiction, non-fiction, columns, essays, and comics. I still haven’t gotten my act together enough to contribute an original piece, but the editors were kind enough to feature an existing book review from my 10-pages-in series.

There’s some wonderful stuff in this issue – a little something for everyone. Check it out for yourself!

In August of 2001, almost five years ago, the city of Ottawa banned smoking in all workplaces – not just offices, but restaurants, bars, and (gasp!) bingo halls. People said the ban would cause restaurants to go bankrupt as patrons fled across the river to Quebec; they said the hospitality industry in the city would never survive. Turns out they were wrong.

Two weeks from today, the entire province of Ontario (population 12.5M, about 1/3 of the entire population of Canada) will ban smoking in all workplaces and enclosed spaces – restaurants, bars, schools, private clubs, healthcare facilities, sports arenas, entertainment venues, work vehicles and offices including government buildings. The initiative is called Smoke Free Ontario, and I think it’s wonderful.

You will not be able to smoke in the common areas of apartment buildings and condominiums. You won’t be able to smoke in a parking garage. You won’t be able to smoke on an outdoor patio if there is any kind of shelter, including even a plastic tarp stretched overhead. And, if you run a private daycare in your home, you cannot smoke in your home – even while the kids are not there.

And as if that weren’t enough, there will be a private members bill proposed in the Ontario Legislature to ban smoking in a private vehicle when children are present.

Bravo to the government of Ontario. Bravo!

Unfortunately, I think there are going to be a lot of problems implementing this legislation. Although there will be fines and penalties, Ontario is an awfully large province with a very small amount of resources for enforcement. And I feel genuine sympathy for those who are trying hard to quit but haven’t been able to do it yet.

Even though I’ve been raised in an era of a paternalistic government and believe in collective social responsibility, I can see where some people see this legislation as a draconian infringement on personal rights and freedoms. But your right to smoke ends when you exhale your smoke into my clean air.

In the five years since Ottawa became smoke-free, it seems we’ve adjusted pretty well from an economic standpoint. And it seems like a lifetime since we’ve had to deal with drifting smoke in restaurants and wretched-smelling clothes after a night on the town. (I used to go out! I did, I did!)

I love the fact that we can go practically anywhere now and not be exposed to second-hand smoke, and I applaud any measures that discourage people from starting. Smoke ’em if you got ’em… but not around me, thanks.

One of my lifelong addictions has been sun exposure. Drugs, alcohol and cigarettes never had much allure, but I’ve always loved to sit in the sun. No matter how much I read about skin cancer and melanoma and wrinkles, I still think I look better with freckled cheeks and tanned legs.

I admit, I’ve come a long way from my high school days, when I used to slather on a thick coating of baby oil before laying out in the sun for hours. (A co-worker of mine when I was working for Zellers as a cashier actually ended up hospitalized when she used vegetable oil instead of baby oil. Yikes!)

Reading the whole Saturday paper cover to cover while sitting on my porch swing in the full sun with a regular flow of coffee is one of the few things I really miss about my childless days.

I’m careful about sunscreen now, at least this early in the season, and I’m fanatical about using it on the boys. But I just don’t have the time to enjoy the sun like I used to, and much to my surprise, I find I’m not as tolerant of the blazing sun as I used to be, either.

Despite the fact that I think I look so much better when I’m at least a little bit bronzed, I’ve always turned up my nose at anything to do with ‘fake’ tans. The gym where I work out has a couple of tanning beds, but I’ve always eschewed them as dangerous. Besides, if I am going to have a tan, I’m going to earn it, dammit. (Yeah, I have some weird ideas rattling around in my head. This is the line of thinking that won’t let me consider highlights for my hair.) And frankly, I was afraid I’d end up looking like this:

But here it is, the second week of May, and I’ve been too embarrassed to bare my fishbelly-white legs in public. Finally, my curiousity over the whole ‘sunless tanning’ idea got the best of me, and I bought some of this.

President’s Choice Sunless Tanning Lotion. I LOVE IT! (And no, I’m not being paid to shill anything. But if the marketing folks at Loblaws are reading, I can be bought, and the price is right.)

I’ve been a little leery of the whole tan in a can thing, but I think they’ve come a long way since the orange skin of the 80s. I had visions of having to do major exfoliation (who has the time?) or ugly brown streaks, but it goes on smooth and is very subtle. I can’t see the tan per se, but (most importantly) I am no longer blinded by the glare off my legs. Most impressive, and only $7.99.

So now I want to know, what else have I been missing? Maybe it’s time to get brave and actually (gasp!) colour my hair?

Do you use “cheater” products? Coloured contacts, lash lengtheners, teeth whiteners, tan in a can? What else can I buy that mother nature forgot to give me? And if you see me looking a little more orange than usual this summer? That’s just all the extra carrots I’ve been eating.

I got my French test results back.

I didn’t get the level I need. Again.

I can’t decide if I’m more disappointed or annoyed. I was pretty sure I nailed it this time, and I know I did much better than last time. Apparently just not better enough to hurdle into the next level, the level I need to get the permanent appointment.

It’s rather a new experience for me, failing something. I never actually failed a course, and while I’ve bombed a couple of tests through the years and not been successful on a handful of competitions, for the most part I get what I want.

The good news is the people that I work with are truly good people, and they are willing to support me through yet more language lessons and more testing. So stay tuned for more adventures from Unilanguage Girl!

In other news, we’re getting ready for our camping adventure this weekend (it’s absolutely pouring rain as I type this), and I wanted to say a huge thank you for all your meal and snack ideas and recipes! One of the domestic tasks I hate the most is deciding what to eat for dinner each day, and your ideas inspired me for regular meals as well as camping meals. Thanks!! For some reason, barbequing never seems like ‘real’ cooking for me, and if I can char it or grill it or burn the holy crap out of it, it’s less like work and more like fun.

And speaking of fun, you absolutely MUST head over to Helene’s blog and make yourself a SuperMom Trading Card in time for Mother’s Day. I love this idea! I started making one a couple of weeks ago and promptly forgot all about it, and I’m cutting this entry short so I have enough time to head over there beforfe I start getting organized for the trip today.

Copied directly from my referral log:

Mon 8 May 2006 22:04:00 ws.churchofscientology.org LOS ANGELES
http: q=”pants&ie=UTF-8&ui=blg&filter=0&sa=N&start=10″

Nice, eh? Someone from the Church of Scientology in LA found blog last night while doing a Google Blog search on “pants”.

You know what? I really don’t want to know.

This government job of mine pays pretty well, and the benefit package has indisputable attraction. But all this playing with words and ideas and abstract concepts all day is getting a little old, and on the weekend I think I found my one true calling. I think it’s time for a career change.

I want to lay sod for a living.

Turns out I’m pretty good at it. Who knew?

We had ordered sod, enough for our front lawn and our next door neighbours, to be delivered Friday afternoon with the intention of laying it Saturday while my mom took the boys elsewhere. When I got home from work Friday and looked at the neat stacks of rolled sod sitting at the end of the driveway, though, all it seemed to be missing was a sign: FREE SOD, TAKE AS MUCH AS YOU CAN CARRY! So even though Beloved was working late, I asked my mother to take the boys to her place for dinner, and I set to laying the sod myself.

No doubt, laying sod is dirty work. I was wearing socks and running shoes and my toes were still black with earthy toe jam by the time I was done. But it is also extremely satisfying. When your lawn is only the width of six or seven rolls of sod, you can measure your progress quickly. There is a soothing rhythm to the pattern of lift, haul, drop, align, roll, tug, push, re-roll, re-align… well, you get it.

Instead of just laying the strips of sod down willy nilly, I laid out each piece with compulsive attention. I learned to butt the edges against each other and “sew” the seams together just like the guy in Canadian Tire recommended when I went in looking for a “sod cutter” and instead got a free 20 minute lecture on sod installation. (There’s no such thing as a sod cutter, as it turns out, and asking for a sod cutter marks you as a gardening naif the same way a tie and pocket protector dooms to you a certain social caste on the first day of high school.)

Now that I am a sod-laying professional, I can impart upon you the wisdom of my experience. Aren’t you lucky? For instance, if you are going to start laying sod on a Friday at dinnertime in suburbia, don’t do it on an empty stomach. The smell of the barbeques will make you very, very cranky.

If you ever want to meet your neighbours, spend some time on your hands and knees laying sod in your front yard. I talked to more residents of Barrhaven Friday afternoon than I have in the three years we’ve lived here. Nobody could pass by without offering some comment, except for the elderly Chinese couple who passed by several times and simply stopped to smile at me, beaming wordlessly at my feeble attempts at conversation. Passers-by were fairly evenly divided into those who offered tips (“Ah, the sod dance,” observed one fellow nostalgically as I stomped down the seams. “You missed a spot right over there.”) and those asking for advice. “Do you, you know, DO this?” said one well-dressed but particularly unarticulate woman. “Um, well, I’m doing it now,” I hedged. “But I’m a sod virgin. This is my first time.” She moved along without another word.

It took me about two hours to finish the front lawn, a patch maybe 275 square feet that took 30 rolls of sod. It also took about four hours the week before to turn all the soil and pull out the weeds that had already taken root this early in the season, and shave away the last scraggly remnants of old lawn. But it is lovely, so very lovely now. Don’t believe me? Take a look for yourself.

Here’s the “lawn”, such as it was, about a month ago.

And here it is on Sunday morning, in all its luscious emerald glory:

Admire it now. With two boys who like dirt, shovels and trucks, and one slightly inattentive homeowner who has enough trouble ensuring the bipeds and the animals of the manor get water and nourishment, it will never last.

Think it’s too late for a career change? Sod laying and professional communications probably fall around the same salary range, right? Or maybe I could just freelance. You know, in all my spare time…