Category: Uncategorized

Sometimes stubbornness can be a good thing. No, really! Maybe not so much in your average preschooler, but it has its merits.

Like me. I’m stubborn. Tenacious. Don’t tell me I can’t do something, because it pisses me off and makes me try harder. After I sulk and lick my wounds for a while, anyway.

Today I start yet another second language training course. Rather than being in a class of six people for four hours a week, it’s just me and the teacher for six hours a day, twice a week, until the middle of May.

Those of you who’ve been around for a while will recall that I recently passed both my reading and writing exams with flying colours, and proceeded to fail my oral exam. The week I took the test was perhaps one of the most stressful of the year for me. I should have delayed it, but hind sight is always clearer, isn’t it? Besides, I’m stubborn.

They mail you a little evaluation after the fact, and tick off areas you need to improve to achieve your next level. To my credit, there weren’t too many tick marks – I must have been close. I got busted on things like ‘your sentences were frequently strung together without the linking necessary to convey the message clearly.’ Beloved looked over the evaluation, gave me a long look and said, “You can’t do most of this stuff in English these days.” He was right. I’m not sure if it made me feel better or not.

Alors, on essaye encore. My teacher is the same one I had before, and I like her a lot. Six hours a day of one-on-one language training is intense, though – at least in a classroom you can nod sagely while the other students are talking and zone out for a minute, or be relieved when somebody else continues to be perplexed by the subjunctive for the third day in a row. Private lessons means its all me, all the time. The Dani Show, in neither official language. Yikes!

I’m a little confused. It’s Monday, but this is definitely going to be a ramble. Sorry for the break in routine!

I read on the weekend (did you notice that almost all my Monday posts begin with “I read on the weekend” or some variant thereof?) an article that said tanning releases endorphins, similar to the ‘runner’s high’, that make you happy and relaxed, but that can also be addictive and cause symptoms of withdrawal.

That pretty much explains November. It might also explain why I feel so great after spending several hours outside with the boys yesterday – despite the pink sunburn stretching my cheeks a little too taut. (I need more transition time between scarves and sunscreen!)

Not a bad day, all in all. In the morning we went for a walk. Well, it was more like a jog – in the lurchy kind of way you jog to keep up with a preschooler on a bike while dragging another preschooler behind you in a wagon – and played at the ‘play park’ (Simonism) for a bit.

While Simon napped, I worked out our tax returns. I was surprised to find out that that we paid almost $7500 in child care last year, just for part-time care. Did I mention that the House is sitting today for the first day under Stephen Harper? I’ll let the dust settle from the IVF funding debate before I start crowing about the “Choice in Child Care Allowance” (turns to the side and spits) again. But be warned, it’s coming.

By the time Simon woke up, I was squirrelly from number crunching and we had no plans for dinner, so we set off on another wander, this one to the Farm Boy that just opened near us. I heart Farm Boy! It’s great having a market within walking distance of the house, and especially lovely to have fresh fruits and vegetables that are – gasp! – fresh. We picked up a couple of pepper steaks, some Asian noodle salad and some multigrain rice pilaf and had ourselves a barbequed feast for dinner. Delish!

We celebrated the end of a gorgeous day with a family trip to Dairy Queen. This is one of those things I remember so clearly from my childhood that I’m happy to carry on to the next generation. Nothing says summer like ice cream running down the chin of a happy preschooler!

And the final stop on my ramble today is with what I chose not to watch on TV last night. Every year, I try to tune in for at least a little bit of the Juno (Canadian music) awards, but with Pamela Anderson as the host last night, I just couldn’t bring myself to watch, especially when I knew she’d be going on about the whole seal hunt thing. I kind of wish I had at least caught Jann Arden’s comment though. Apparently she walked on stage and said, “I just want everyone to know that my brassiere is made entirely of seal eyelids.”

Okay, so for this entire post I have been debating on whether or not to call down the gods and admit to this or not, but I can’t help myself. You know how I was looking forward to a certain day on the calendar? You know what time my boys woke up yesterday? 6:25 am. (I was astonished.) You know what time they woke up this morning? Me neither… the house was still silent when I slipped out the door at twenty of seven.

It’ll never last – but I’ll take what I can get!

There’s an old axiom in the world of Canadian entertainment, especially in the music industry, that you won’t make it big at home until you earn acclaim elsewhere. Canadians generally refuse to acknowledge home-grown talent as worthy until our American cousins take notice. Bryan Adams, for instance, or the Barenaked Ladies are good examples of this. Sarah McLachlan, even.

My husband continues to be mildly perplexed by my blogging habit. (This is not a non-sequiter. It all comes together – wait for it.) He is, however, generally tolerant of it. For most of last year, he wasn’t even reading it until I made blog our computer’s home page.

Last night when I got home, I went straight upstairs to relieve myself of my uncooperative pants. Beloved followed me and we discussed snippets of our day. I was about to launch into a reduced version of my epic tale of a malcontent zipper when he interrupted me and said, “I know, I read about it” – as he gave a single tug that mysteriously freed the zipper from whatever paralysis it was suffering as if there had never been an obstruction in the first place.

“Oh, you read it?” I said. Pause. “Did you think it was funny?” (I am so needy for praise sometimes, I disgust even myself.)

“Yeah,” he began, “but I can’t believe you wrote about being stuck in the bathroom. It was really long but I actually read it all the way through.” I am still trying to decide whether there is a compliment in here somewhere as he continues. “Usually, I only read the first little bit and then skip ahead to the comments .”

Ahhhh, it’s so much clearer now. “So,” I say, “you only go back and read the posts that everybody ELSE thinks are worthy. So that’s how it is, is it?”

But I am talking to myself. He has rolled his eyes and walked away. I can’t help but laugh.

It’s just before lunchtime. The sun is shining and I can’t wait to get outside and get a breath of fresh air. But first, after consuming both a large and an extra-large coffee during the course of the morning, I must make a pit stop.

I am wearing my favourite black dress pants, a little splurge from last winter – a high-end label at a stellar price from Winners. They would probably retail around $200 but I got them for $50. They are my ‘professional’ pants.

I tug at the zipper, tucked discreetly on my left hip – and nothing happens. I tug at the zipper again, and once more with feeling. Nothing happens.

I crane my neck and arch my back, trying to eyeball the zipper directly while holding the zipper in one hand, the seam in the other and will my rather intrusive breast out of my line of view. Nothing happens. I vaguely remember the feeling of the zipper climbing a fraction of a centimetre higher than usual when I put them on this morning, but thought nothing of it at the time.

My bladder, sensing my hesitation, begins sending out mayday messages to my brain. What was simply a pre-emptive pit stop becomes a dire emergency.

Failing to believe the old axiom about insanity being defined as taking the same course of action over and over again and expecting a different result, I tug mercilessly at the zipper. Nothing continues to happen.

I stop to consider my situation. It is lunchtime, I am in a bathroom stall at work, I have to pee with a fierceness previously known only in the ninth month of pregnancy, and I am trapped in my pants.

Can I ask for help? To whom should I address my plea? I don’t imagine that my female colleagues will have much more success at trying to remove my pants than I have had, and I don’t think I fancy letting them try. The IT office is nearby – they might have pliers. Do I want to have one of the tech support guys prying open my pants with pliers? I don’t think my reputation could stand it.

Should I go back to my desk and cut open the pants? Did I mention really. stellar. deal? I would sooner amputate my legs than deface this fine example of trouserly art.

Can I hold it until the end of the day? That’s five hours, give or take a quarter hour. And my bladder is screaming. Even if I could hold it that long, it would preclude me adding to my own misery by indulging in an afternoon coffee. And the make-or-break hour would be the commute home, where I would have no recourse if I decided that no, in fact, I couldn’t hold it that long after all.

Can I shimmy out of these pants without undoing the zipper? Although this seems to be the best of the options presented to date, it is by no means easy to accomplish. These pants sit rather comfortably at my waist, which is a considerable circumferential distance from my ample post-ten-pound-child-bearing hips.

I long for a nice flat bed, or at least a hygienic carpet, on which to stretch out, à la 1980s Jordache jeans pulled on with a coat hanger. I tug, I wriggle, I suck in my gut. I try to suck in my hips and instead implode my eardrums. I nearly herniate myself in the process, but finally manage to yank the traitorous trousers to my knees.

Ah, sweet relief.

Except now I have a new problem. You saw this coming, didn’t you? I, sadly, did not.

Having achieved the immediate and overriding goal of an empty bladder, I find myself stranded and without a business continuity plan. More specifically, I have no idea how to get my pants back up where they belong in polite company without undoing the zipper.

This time, gravity is not my friend. Once again, I tug, I tuck, I yank and I wriggle. I inhale until my diaphragm is somewhere into the vicinity of my voicebox. With a final wrenching pull, my pants hurdle the summit that is my hips. The waistband falls gently into place, and I am safe to exit the stall in decency.

Disaster averted. Life goes on.

Except now it’s two hours later and I have to pee again. I’ll never make it all the way home. Fate is cruel.

Forget the high-end designer pants, I’m investing in some good old-fashioned elastic waistbands. If, that is, I can ever get these traitorous pants off…

You remember how when you were a kid waiting for Christmas, or your birthday, or even beginning of summer vacation, and you had your sights set on it for weeks in advance? And time c-r-a-w-l-e-d the closer you got to the magic date? And you had all sorts of daydreams about just how great it was going to be, so much so that you couldn’t think about anything else by the time it got down to just a few days to go?

That’s how I feel about daylight savings. It’s this weekend! It’s almost here!!

I’m not just excited about the jump to daylight savings time. This is no ordinary anticipation. My fundamental sanity and emotional well-being is irrevocably intertwined to our capacity to “spring forward” this year.

Because I really, really, really need to sleep past five a.m.

Oh benevolent sleep gods, why have you forsaken me? Not that I’ve spent an inordinate amount of time tallying up the injustices committed against me in this regard (I have), but do you realize that every week for the past month, maybe two months, I have lost an entire night’s worth of sleep? You lose one hour a night for seven nights, lookit that – a whole night of precious sleep evaporated into the morning gloaming.

I know, there are those of you out there mocking my 75-pound weakling self for not being able to cope on seven hours of sleep a night. But I can’t do it! I’m a creature of sloth; I was built to nap.

And when I don’t get enough sleep, I am not a productive, cheery contributor to the good of society as a whole. I tend, in fact, toward the shrewish. Why is that, anyway? How come when I’m tired I become cranky and difficult and impatient? Wouldn’t it be nice if tiredness resulted in something more manageable, like say a rash? Or a case of the giggles?

When Tristan was born, the single hardest thing for me to cope with – including the cracked and bleeding nipples, the thrush, the postpartum hormonal hangover – was the sleep deprivation. I remember getting up to nurse him at 5:30 every morning and watching an old episode of Who’s the Boss or WKRP in Cincinnati (I always watched TV when I nursed Tristan – it was the only way I could stay upright and with all our latch problems I couldn’t nurse lying down), and being amazed that the world actually turned at that ungodly hour of the morning, before stumbling back upstairs and sleeping blissfully until 8 am or later. I didn’t know how good I had it, even factoring in the Tony Danza overdose.

Now my boys are awake and ready to go for the day every. single. day at five o’clock. That’s got to be a violation of some charter of human rights somewhere, wouldn’t you think?

So you see, daylight savings is my only hope. I’ve had my calendar circled, with blue and yellow dancing stars and happy moons and trails of Zzzzzzz, for weeks. It’s gonna change everything, right? They’ll sleep in until – dare I hope for it – six o’clock, right? Right??

If you’ve been around for a while, you know about my failed love affair with Weight Watchers. You know about my tepid relationship with the gym. You know about my obsession with doughnuts.

You ought to be especially proud of me today, then. It’s spring, and I’ve been trying to improve a few of my worst habits. Today – I packed my lunch. And not only did I pack my lunch, but I packed a healthy lunch. Impressive, no?

I’ve got a flax-seed roll with a slice of emmental cheese, and a little baggie full of baby carrots and grape tomatoes, and an even smaller baggie of almonds. And since I’ve been going through the motions of educating myself about nutrition (Lord knows, if I left it up to the rest of the family, we’d be dead within the week) I thought I’d share my accrued wisdom on the subject. Try not to laugh. Y’all probably know this stuff already, but I got nothing else to talk about anyway. And I don’t know much, so at least it won’t take long.

For instance, flax seed bread. I knew this was high in omega 3 oil, which is the same thing that makes salmon and other fish so healthy, so for some reason I expected the bread to have a fishy or bitter taste, somewhere between poppy seeds and caraway (yuck) seeds. But these buns are yummy! And healthy, too. I have a serious carb thing going on, so whole grain breads are my new best friends.

About those baby carrots… am I the last person to notice that the package says ‘baby cut carrots’? I saw a thing on kids’ TV the other day (look! More benefits of TV!) and they showed how these are just ordinary carrots, shaved down to baby carrot size. Those sneaky farmers! It hasn’t stopped me from buying them, but at least I don’t feel guilty for eating the babies anymore, secure in the knowledge that I’m scarfing carrots who have lived a long and productive life.

And finally, your edification via my lunch concludes with this segue into organic produce courtesy of my organic grape tomatoes. Do you buy organic produce? I try to shop those aisles of the grocery store first and pick up whatever won’t blow the budget, but the organic produce at my local Loblaws is usually not only twice the price but looks like it was left over from last year. Yes, I know, the whole point of the organic thing is to remove the preservatives and whatnot, but a lifetime of expecting peppers to be plump and shiny is hard to overcome in the face of what looks mealy and anemic.

There was an article in Consumer Reports earlier this year about organic products, and it said that certain foods like asparagus, avocados, bananas, broccoli, cauliflower, sweet corn, kiwi, mangos, onions, papaya, pineapples and sweet peas weren’t even worth the splurge to buy organic. The two things we almost always bought in the organic aisle were bananas and avocados, so that alone has saved me a few dollars each week. A friend of mine who has a diploma in holistic nutrition says that grapes and raisins are one of the worst foods for pesticides, so we always buy organic raisins too.

See how much stuff I can cram into one brown paper bag reusable nylon lunch tote? So, got anything to share with the class? Educate us in your latest nutritional adventures – are you reducing your sodium, watching fat content, going vegan? What’s in your lunch box?

My kids excell at finding ways to freak me out.

I’m putting away the groceries, and Tristan and Simon are futzing about in the dining room. Simon is playing with the Thomas the Tank Engine book that you press the buttons and it plays songs – the Wheels on the Train, I’ve Been Working on the Railroad, etc.

And all of a sudden, he’s bawling. Tristan is nowhere near him. I pick him up and ask him if he’s hurt, if he’s sick, but he won’t stop crying. Tristan had said something about the song making Simon sad, but I didn’t catch it.

Beloved comes upstairs and says “Twinkle Twinkle Litttle Star” – the song Simon had been playing obsessively – makes him cry today. We couldn’t even talk about the song by title without setting him off, even after he calmed down and was happily doing something else.

I immediately feared the worst, and started quizzing both of them on where they might have heard that song. I was, of course, thinking about daycare. But what? My kids love their daycare provider so much they call her Auntie Bobbie. And they both said nope, the only place they hear that song is in the book. The one that’s been tucked away for a couple of weeks.

Any thoughts???

It’s here! It’s finally arrived!! No, not spring (but that, too!)

No no, we are crowing today about the arrival of the latest book by my favourite parenting author and blogger extraordinaire, Ann Douglas: The Mother of All Sleep Solutions for Your Baby, Toddler and Preschooler. Hooray for Ann!

I’m quite excited about this new arrival for several reasons. First, because I love Ann and her books, and I think this one will become as much of a classic as the other Mother of All books. Second, because we really need some advice on explaining to the boys the difference between “now is a good time to get out of bed and face the day, smiling” and “oh for the love of all things holy, are you KIDDING ME” o’clock in the morning. Third, and least (well, not really) because this book features the sage advice and carefully chosen words of a veteran of the sleep deprivation game – Marla! Oh, and me. Me! And a few other bloggers I know.

Are you impressed? It’s “my” first book. Look, here’s a passage that features me:

It says,

“I used to make a big production about how tired I was – I should have been nominated for an Oscar – in an effort to get my husband to come in and volunteer to take over, especially in the middle of the night,” says Dani [that’s me!], the mother of two boys, ages three and one. “It was quite silly now that I think about it. I don’t know why I didn’t just ask for help.”

What a great way to be immortalized, eh? Whining and sleep deprived – my first years of parenting perfectly encapsulated and preserved for posterity! And Ann was nice enough to take other stuff I said and make it sound almost coherent, too. I’m so very proud!

I love Ann’s parenting books because they offer concrete ideas and solutions, 100% free of guilt and judgement. I won’t point any fingers, because this is a nice post celebrating the fruits of Ann’s (and my!) labours, but there are more than a few sleep books (rhymes with Trouserley) out there that make a girl feel like a toad for toying with sleep training. You can read my CIO Diaries for my personal views on that subject.

Ann’s books offer a wonderful combination of practical solutions (more than one – so if one thing doesn’t work, you don’t have to start over from scratch!), plus the big ideas around whatever subject she’s presenting, and gentle humour. It’s like getting parenting advice from your best friend, if your best friend weren’t as befuddled and overwhelmed about the whole parenting thing as you are.

So thank you, Ann, and congratulations. I’m naming myself an honourary Auntie of this wonderful book – hope you don’t mind!

Shelley, fellow Canuck, mother and gen-X blogger, is holding a contest over at her blog to celebrate the Funny Girls all around us. (Don’t look at me coyly – you know who you are!)

Shelley says,

Tales From Generation Xhausted is having a contest in honor of She’s Funny That Way Day. Tell the world about your Favourite Funny Girl and you could win a prize! Details at http://movershakerbirthdaycakebaker.blogs.com

You only have until the end of the week to write a post and qualify for a draw for free books. FREE BOOKS! What are you still doing here? Get on over there!

(I’m hoping to have my own nomination up soon.)

There was an article in the Ottawa Citizen this week that I can’t link to yet again, but I can link you to the original source, the Washington Post. The article was about the controversy around Sesame Beginnings, a new DVD series developed for babies between six months and two years old, featuring baby versions of favourite Sesame Street characters including Big Bird, Elmo, and Cookie Monster. (Didn’t we already do that in the 80s? Or am I just imagining Sesame Babies?)

The DVDs were developed in a partnership between Sesame Workshop and the non-profit child development and advocacy program Zero to Three. As a parent, with a staggering array of children’s entertainment to choose from, I’ll happily choose something developed by organizations who are reputable in the field of childhood education, rather than simply mass entertainment (call off your libel dogs, I never mentioned Disney or Fox Kids in particular). I don’t suffer from the delusion that they’re completely altruistic, but I’m comforted to know that a pioneer like Sesame Workshop is behind the scenes.

There’s a rash of companies on the market in the last five years or so, trying to sell you products to build a smarter baby. Flash cards for three month olds, classical music in-utero… if you have money to burn, there’s a whole market out there full of questionable products for you.

We have a shelf full of Baby Einstein videos. We didn’t buy them because we thought they would make the boys smarter, or that we would give their early learning a kick-start. We bought them (actually, we received most of them as gifts) because the kids loved to watch them. They would both sit peacefully for 20 or 30 minutes and watch the harmless images of dancing puppets or oddly psychedelic spinning toys, giving me the chance to throw together whatever was passing for dinner that night, or toss on a load of laundry, or, god-forbid, take a shower. (whispers) I even used to put them on just so I could read the paper and have a cup of coffee in peace. Scandalous, isn’t it?

That’s why I like the idea behind the Sesame Beginnings DVDs. I grew up on a healthy daily dose of Sesame Street and I’m fine if my kids grow up on it, too. I’m not naive enough to believe they’ll help the boys ace their college entrance exams, but if it buys an overwhelmed mother a few minutes of sanity, I’m all for it. And for what it’s worth, ask my mother some time; she’ll insist that I graduated university magna cum laude and could read by the time I was four in no small part due to the positive influence of Grover, Oscar, Ernie and Bert.

According to the Post article, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that children under two should not be allowed to watch any television whatsoever. I think this is an unreasonable expectation and puts an unjust burden of guilt and fear onto parents who are just trying to get through the day. Just yesterday I admitted that I worry that we watch a little bit too much TV – but I cannot fathom a world where Simon would just be getting his first exposure to television today, at the age of 25 months. There’s a happy middle ground, I’m sure.

The Canadian Pediatric Society has taken a more reasonable stance on this one. In a position statement on media use by children, they point out that Canadian kids do watch excessive amounts of television, and that can contribute to childhood obesity and other problems. However, they are more realistic in their acknowledgement that TV can also be used as a learning tool for the very young:

Television can be a powerful teacher. Watching Sesame Street is an example of how toddlers can learn valuable lessons about racial harmony, cooperation, kindness, simple arithmetic and the alphabet through an educational television format. Some public television programs stimulate visits to the zoo, libraries, bookstores, museums and other active recreational settings, and educational videos can certainly serve as powerful prosocial teaching devices. The educational value of Sesame Street, has been shown to improve the reading and learning skills of its viewers. In some disadvantaged settings, healthy television habits may actually be a beneficial teaching tool.

So there you go. My guys are a little beyond the target age for the new Sesame Beginnings DVDs, but I wouldn’t hesistate to check them out if the boys were younger. And I’ve still got some thinking to do on the amount of TV that gets consumed at our place, but with the warmer weather finally arriving, that too may be a problem that begins to resolve itself.

What about you? How much TV do your kids watch, and from what age? Do you give any credence to the argument that all TV is bad TV, or do you justify the fact that your kids might watch a lot of TV but at least it’s not commercial TV? Is 30 minutes of TV as detrimental to your bright-eyed baby as the forces of guilt would lead you to believe? ‘Fess up – it wasn’t an accident that time you hit “play continuously” instead of “play once”, was it?